For most companies and agencies, project management is one of the basic processes. The question of which model is the most effective is usually answered differently. In contrast to many agencies, companies in the B2B sector mostly rely on classic project management. In today’s article, we explain why agile approaches are also worthwhile in the B2B sector.
With the change to a service society, the demands on curse or blessing projects have also changed. The aim is always to complete a project efficiently with the required quality, within the planned time and with optimal use of personnel and budget resources. The German Project Management Association has also confirmed in a study that the success rate of agile projects is significantly higher than that of traditional approaches . Plans, requirements or deadlines are often postponed, especially in B2B online marketing. Nevertheless, the project curse or blessing team must be able to react flexibly to changes, for example in terms of scope, time or costs. This is why smaller project steps – so-called sprints – are carried out. By adapting the process accordingly to intermediate results, project conditions or changed wishes and customer requirements, a new dynamic is created.
The project process in a B2B online marketing agency
A practical example: A B2B company commissions a larger project from an online marketing agency, such as a website relaunch. Such a project always consists of milestones that extend over a longer period of time. Changes usually occur over the course of the entire process. Regardless of whether it is changing customer requirements or new technical curse or blessing developments: the topics are becoming more and more diverse and complex. This is why most employees have specialized and in-depth specialist knowledge rather than general expertise.
For this reason, agencies also rely on specialist teams or units that specialize in their field. Boundaries between departments are broken down and the increasing complexity in the B2B sector is tackled together. For example, the team for a website relaunch is made up of different specialist areas such as development, design or text. The project manager’s curse or blessing tasks are correspondingly varied. He not only has to keep an overview of the entire project and coordinate and distribute the tasks accordingly, but also carry out quality controls. He is also available to the customer as an advisory contact and keeps an eye on the controlling.
Project software and weekly meetings as control tools
Agile project management places great value on a participatory leadership style. The team organizes itself and successfully completes the project by working independently. In order to keep an overview, it is worth using holistic project software that is used by the entire project team. It ensures that all threads converge with the project manager and that the team and processes are controlled.
This not only reduces email traffic and phone calls to a minimum. Important project steps or agreements are recorded in writing: All tasks, topics curse or blessing and notes are collected in the web/cloud-based project tool. This means that every project step is understandable for the customer and everyone involved, even months later, and can be proven if necessary.
Weekly meetings also help to control the team and manage project steps effectively. The personal exchange between all project participants ensures a better flow of information and closer cooperation.
Advantages of agile project management:
- Faster processing of tasks
- Integrate changed priorities more flexibly
- compensate for understaffing in the team
- Organizing too many requirements and tasks optimally
- Easily reallocate resources from subprojects
- Constant exchange with customers, close cooperation
- Review after each project interval
- Positive project development within the process
- More reliable scheduling
- Greater adaptation to customer and market requirements
Agile project management undoubtedly has its curse or blessing weaknesses. Because the customer is heavily involved, agility can also put the project at risk to some extent. This applies, for example, to changes in decisions made by the customer or the company (e.g. regarding the company’s direction). These changes disrupt concepts and agreements. The result is work steps that have to be repeated, unplanned correction loops and additional work, which ultimately lead to delayed project goals.