In previous posts I’ve written about how the ecosystem that supports and facilitates the adoption of Agile in marketing has been gaining momentum. When I present on The State of Agile Marketing I sometimes include the following slide:

In this post, I’ll zero in a bit on the first bullet about consulting firms because I want to clarify how I see this as a validation and the role they play. What’s clear is that the top consulting firms are publishing more and more content on Agile Marketing. As one example, consider  McKinsey & Co. whose organizational insights page now includes a section on “business agility” and if you drill in deeper you’ll see that marketing is one of the most popular content areas within business agility. But if you really want to understand where the consulting companies are coming from, I’d recommend listening to this recent podcast from McKinsey:

For those of us who have been immersed in Agile Marketing for a while, it’s pretty clear that what’s being offered here are not fresh insights but rather a set of insights that have been known to practitioners for some time. Reading between the lines a bit, I hear what sounds like a gap between theory and practice that is characteristic of teams that are still early on in their adoption. In other words, the fact that these consulting firms are invested in Agile Marketing is wonderful and will drive adoption overall but it’s also important to understand that they are still very much figuring it out.

To the  degree that these firms can connect—and relate—Agile transformation to their existing digital transformation practices they have a valuable role to play when it comes to executive education. And it’s important to acknowledge that our interviews from The Marketing Agility Podcast make it clear that executive buy-in is the single biggest requirement for agile transformation to succeed in enterprises.

The mindset changes required to succeed with Agile are very hard to embrace often put a spotlight on the innovator’s dilemma. In my view, outside consulting firms are optimally positioned to influence executive mindset, and openness to adopting Agile in general, though I am not sure that I would advise engaging such firms to do much on the implementation side just yet.

If you’re a senior marketing who has worked with a top 5 consulting firm to support an agile transformation, I’d be thrilled to connect with you whether it’s for the podcast or just to learn about your experience.