Agile is a buzzword. These days, everyone is “doing agile”. Or so they say.
Despite over 90% of senior executives stating agile adoption as a top priority, less than 10% actually consider their firm to be performing with a high level of agility.
As much as people love to wear the badge of agile on their sleeve, there is a great deal of confusion swelling in the dark chasm between the aspiration of agile implementation and reality.
So what is agile?
It’s basically a philosophy of software development that prioritizes iterative development of working software and solutions through cross-collaboration and self-organizing teams.
It’s also an umbrella term for a bunch of development frameworks, but agile doesn’t simply mean kanban or scrum.
Some of the confusion arises when teams equate the agile approach to using an “Agile framework” (usually capitalized).
Frameworks like these are attractive because they’re sold as simplified solutions to difficult project and process management problems.
Sure, these frameworks can be an important part of an agile implementation, but they need more. They need a firm foundation to stand upon.
It’s not enough to simply go through the motions and expect an agile approach to “just work”, especially when transitioning from a more rigid and traditional framework like waterfall.
In order to drive agile success, teams need to adopt agile philosophy. They need to change the way they think about work ownership, management, and their relationship and duty to customers.
Without this vital force, frameworks like scrum and kanban fall flat.
In this article I’ll investigate what it is that separates true agile from the “fake” agile that is often the differentiator between success and failure of a development team. Here’s a quick overview:
This is a guest post by David Miller, a technical writer and education technology enthusiast who researches project management software. You can find him on X or writing for ProProfs Project.
Remote team culture is the shared system of values, behaviors, communication norms, and working practices that helps distributed colleagues make consistent decisions and feel connected. It is not a virtual copy of office culture. It is the deliberate way people experience the company when most of their work happens through documents, messages, calls, and workflows.
If I ask a few colleagues how well they understand their company’s culture, their answers may vary. Ask a remote team, spread across time zones and working contexts, and the gap can be wider. That matters because remote colleagues still represent the organization, make decisions in its name, and rely on one another to deliver good work.
Organizations face a wide array of uncertainties that can disrupt operations, threaten profitability, and damage reputation. Whether it’s market volatility, technological disruptions, or regulatory changes, the ability to anticipate, assess, and mitigate risks has become a crucial part of successful management. This is where risk management comes into play.
Risk management is the structured process of identifying potential threats, evaluating their likelihood and impact, and developing strategies to minimize or eliminate their adverse effects.
By integrating risk management into their decision-making processes, organizations can not only safeguard their assets but also seize opportunities that arise from taking calculated risks.
In this article, we explore the fundamentals of risk management, its various types, and why proactive risk mitigation is essential for businesses to thrive in uncertain times.
This is a guest post from Brayn Wills, knowledge management manager at ProProfs. He is responsible for creating unique and relevant content on knowledge base tools and keeping track of the latest developments in the realm of knowledge management. In his free time, he is either reading a new book or exploring offbeat destinations.
When customers deal with businesses, they expect a great experience. This means that some kind of customer support needs to be available to them, around the clock.
Of course, providing quality customer support with real human agents managing helpdesks 24/7 is an expensive proposition.
On the other hand, companies need to make it easy for customers to access information to solve common queries – this is a vital factor in the journey towards consistent, high-quality customer satisfaction.
Many organizations are now implementing customer self-service via traditional and online platforms to ensure that neither the business nor the customer suffers.
This helps them to deliver a double whammy of maintaining their overheads while improving their efficiency in customer service, both of which result in improved customer experience.
With the adoption of digital services, self-service is gradually minimizing the burden on live agents too. It is also allowing businesses to successfully meet customer expectations with regards to servicing queries in a more timely and regulated fashion.
However, going overboard with the automation of customer support self-service can be a risky move for businesses. While it may help in curbing expenses, it may take an adverse toll on customer satisfaction and the overall reputation of the business. Therefore, the key is to hit the right balance between man and machine.
This is a guest post by Kyriaki Raouna, a Content Writer at LearnWorlds writing about marketing and elearning. She is an experienced career consultant and a content writer for SaaS.
User onboarding is the guided experience that helps a new customer reach first value, understand a product, and become confident using it. Customer education makes that journey repeatable by turning guidance, examples, and practice into a structured path instead of a series of one-off explanations.
From crossing the street, correctly preparing food, fastening seat belts, to coordinating a journey via public transit. Each of these is an example of a risk management process happening in our heads; sometimes the result of “common sense”, sometimes these decisions are made unconsciously.
When it comes to business management, a more rigorous, formalized approach is needed.
One such strategy for managing risk is to utilize standards for risk management, like ISO 31000. This approach is useful in pretty much any situation, for organizations of all shapes and sizes, to manage risk in their everyday operations.
Managing risk effectively is essential to ensure businesses succeed and thrive in an environment of constant uncertainty. This post covers everything you need to know about ISO 31000; here’s a quick rundown of the article structure:
You know the importance of having great customer support. As a young company, you take pride in this—it’s what separates you from industry giants. You’re able to give your customers the individualized attention in a fast turnaround time. You’re even able to have relationships with your customers, learning from them and customizing your product to meet their needs.
But at a certain point, your team has done too good a job. Customer satisfaction grows sky-high, your customer base begins to grow, as well as your product itself, offering more features and applications. This means tickets become innumerable and much more complicated. And that’s when plain email support just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Here’s everything you need to know to help you decide whether a switch is in order.
“[the] systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining objective evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which the audit criteria are fulfilled.” – ISO, from ISO 19011:2018 – Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems
That’s another way of saying someone takes a look at what you’re doing, gathers some evidence, and compares that evidence to what you’re supposed to be doing (in other words, a set of clearly documented requirements).
In the case of ISO, these requirements are known as standards. ISO 9001 is a standard. ISO 14001 is a standard.
Importantly, this understanding of audit implies that there are a few main things being considered by the auditor:
What’s documented by the company (e.g. internal processes, policies, and SOPs)
Evidence gathered to support how these policies, procedures, and SOPs are implemented in practice
The requirements defined by the ISO standard being audited against (e.g. ISO 9001)
Audits performed by companies to assess and analyze their own management systems are known as internal audits. Many resources for guiding companies on how to perform internal audits exist, and foremost of these is the ISO 19011 standard.
For most management system standards, internal audits are an important requirement. Even guideline standards like ISO 26000 for social responsibility depend on reports to evidence the success of their implementations.
As such, ISO 19011 defines a set of guidelines; a framework for companies to plan, implement, and improve upon their audit programs, for auditing the implementation of management systems.
Since the first edition of ISO 19011 was published in 2002, many new management system standards have been published.
These standards often share a common structure, including certain requirements, terms, and definitions being used. That means ISO 19011 can be used to devise highly economic audit programs, wherein knowledge and processes can be shared and applied across various management systems.
By considering how they might take a broader approach to management system auditing and integration, companies implementing ISO management systems stand to save time, money, and confusion when preparing for and implementing internal audits.
The goal of this post is to provide a spring-board for understanding ISO 19011, and how to get started with internal ISO auditing. In this post, I’ll cover:
What is ISO 19011
7 principles of ISO auditing
Different types of ISO audit
Key elements of an ISO audit
8 free ISO audit templates
If you just want the free ISO audit templates, then here they are:
This is a guest post by Adlin Sherley, an enthusiastic writer specializing in social media marketing techniques. She has a healthy obsession with writing, reading and catching up with her friends. Her passion is to help people in all aspects of marketing through the content she provides.
If you have a product, service or even just an idea that is worth selling, how would you do it? How would you let people know?
In the world of business, certain principles have been relevant for centuries. The concepts of promotion and marketing have existed for as long as humans have been trading.
Humans have always used their voices to communicate, tell stories, and spread messages, which is why word of mouth is still one of the simplest yet most effective ways of marketing something.
Before the internet or advent of the printing press, marketing moved slower. Person A used or came across something that caught their attention, and then they went around spreading the word to B, C, D, and whoever else was along the way. Arguably, it was a lot easier to convince people back then.
One thing that has changed with the advent of digital technology, is the speed and reach of marketing and advertising tools.
Enter the digital era
As we enter into the age of information, technology has made reaching large numbers of people as easy as a single click.
On the other hand, this means that competition in the attention-economy is fiercer than ever, with the coveted-yet-fickle attention span of individuals the shining prize.
“Going viral is not an outcome; it’s a happening. Sometimes it happens; sometimes it doesn’t. Just remember, fans are vanity and sales are sanity.” – Lori Taylor (@lorirtaylor)
Analogies aside, marketing today is a matter of strategy; well-planned, well-implemented, and continuously improved upon. If your marketing strategy is bang-on, then there’s nothing stopping you.
Conversely, a single wrong move could set you back tremendously, and that’s why it’s important to establish a process.
Breaking down digital marketing
Here are some base points we want to touch on before we move on to the meatier part of this article:
Digital marketing is diverse, but still functions on the base principles of marketing
Social media is, and probably will be for a very long time, the most sought-after platform for digital marketing
Social media has a usable database of over a billion people
For the past two years and probably for the next decade, influencer marketing has massive scope for both big and small brands
Digital Marketing is very content driven, both textual and visual, and the consumer today is a highly aware one
As you’re reading this article, at least 100 million people are online, scrolling through a feed that is 60% marketing is various forms (direct and indirect)
Influencers are like the people who were originally invited as guests to a party, but then decided they could be of some use and started helping the host out. By the end of the night, they are running the party themselves, while the actual host just sits back and relaxes.
The only difference now is that a certain chunk of these consumers is becoming a part of the marketing plan because they add both quantitative and qualitative value.
In simpler words, brands want to reach more people and make more money; Influencers want to do the exact same thing. Et voila! A common ground that creates space for influencer marketing to flourish.
Word of mouth has gotten a makeover, a virtual one, and influencer marketing is an extension born of the digital age. And if the numbers are anything to go by, it’s doing pretty well.
Building an influencer marketing strategy for 2019
2019 has been touted as the year that influencer marketing generates a major portion of the revenue for brands that decide to market extensively on digital platforms. So, if you are a company/brand that’s looking to build a strategy with a higher success than failure rate, read on.
Let’s break down the strategizing process into steps:
Step 1: Define your target audience
Step 2: List out your objective(s)
Step 3: Do your research
Step 4: Shortlist the Influencers
Step 5: Do a comprehensive background check
Step 6: Design your campaign
Step 7: Execute your plan
Step 8: Measure your return on investment (ROI)
Step 9: Plan for phase 2
Step 10: Move on to the next campaign
Now that we have the framework for the strategy let’s also understand the more in-depth version of it.
Step 1: Define your target audience
Not just for an influencer marketing plan, for any marketing plan at all the target audience needs to be defined and fully understood.
If you don’t know who you’re catering to, or who is most likely to be associated with your brand, then you probably need to go back to the drawing board. On digital media, the age-spectrum of the audience is vast, which is why you need to find your segment and focus on that.
The lack of targeting in marketing leads to wasted resources and building plans that aren’t as concrete as they should be.
It’s like standing in a shooting range and firing indiscriminately, hoping that it will hit the target eventually.
To avoid wasting time and effort, it’s always smarter to just know who your audience is, what their preferences are, and why they would be inclined to purchase your product or service.
Step 2: List your objectives
Next, you’ve got to ask yourself (and your team) this: Why are we drawing up this plan and what do we hope to achieve?
The long-term goal is always the same – to increase sales and revenue. However, there are a lot of other goals and objectives along the way that you need to focus on as well. Is it brand recognition? Or is it increasing your market share? Or simple expanding your reach?
Whatever your goals, figuring out your process can help align those goals with the work you’re actually doing. You may want to consider using a prioritization matrix to figure out what needs to be done first.
Using Process Street to build, run, and improve your business processes will help you hit your goals in the long run. It’s pretty simple:
There can be multiple objectives, and recognizing them really helps with forging the path ahead of you.
Sometimes the short-term goals are more important than the long-term ones, which means you might have to incur certain expenses now to be able to increase your overall revenue later on.
For influencer marketing, the collaterals delivered by both you and the Influencer are mostly focused on reaching out to more people and increasing the customer base of the brand.
Once you do that successfully, sales and revenue are bound to see a spike.
With your immediate objectives clearly listed out, you can set out on doing your research.
This research would include finding out about current market trends, campaigns that are doing well or and even those that aren’t, relevant market research for your brand’s niche, figuring out which digital platform would be more suitable for you, and also laying out your potential expenditure for the kind of campaigns you’re trying to create.
All of this pretty much lays the foundation for the building that you’re trying to construct. If influencer marketing is going to hold your fort, then you also have to ensure that your fort is strong enough by itself too.
The bottom line is to be fully informed and aware before you move on to the next steps because the right research will steer you in the right direction.
Step 4: Shortlist the influencers
This again involves a lot of research, because you need to know who the most bankable Influencers are at this point and also understand whether or not they would add value to your brand.
Not every influencer is the right one for you, irrespective of how many followers they have. If their niche matches yours, or rather can encompass your brand in it, then you know you’re making a safe choice.
It’s a smart idea to get in touch with multiple influencers, explain your brand’s ideologies to them, and understand whether or not they’d be able to advocate your brand’s personality through their own.
Remember, the audience of an influencer is persuaded by their choices, and they follow them for a reason, so your brand can either fit into the flow or get lost amidst the clutter.
Step 5: Do a calculative background check
This step has more to do with the numbers, which is really quite essential. A background check on the Influencers you shortlist helps you understand what type of content they produce, the quality you can expect, and also the kind of engagement their previous posts have received.
More engagement and more followers means better reach, but the quality of those followers is also important.
Sometimes you’ll see Influencers with not more than 10,000 followers are having better engagement numbers when compared to those with 50,000 followers. And that’s when you need to make a choice between just numbers and actual quality content.
Step 6: Design your campaign
Once you have your chosen Influencers to get on board, your next step would be to design a campaign based on your earlier aligned objectives. While you might be wondering why designing the campaign isn’t being done at an earlier stage, there’s a very solid reason for this.
Designing a campaign along with your Influencers is a smarter choice, simply because their input could make a significant difference in how your campaign turns out.
Another reason is that since they’re the ones who are going to be primarily working the campaign, you want to make sure that all of you are on the same page as well. And if the execution is to be successful, there has to be a lot of teamwork and brainstorming going into it.
Step 7: Execute your plan
The execution is very important, but you already knew that. The real task is improvising when things don’t go according to plan. When there are more overheads involved, the risks can also be higher. In that case, especially, it’s always smarter to have a Plan B for your execution.
One of the things you can do to ensure success in executing your plan is to use Process Street to run a checklist. That might mean building the process by creating and editing a template, or using one of our custom-built templates like this social media influencer outreach checklist.
By using Process Street, you can streamline the whole process with features like conditional logic and dynamic due dates that eliminate much of the repetitive work you’d usually be burdened with.
For example, in the social media manager outreach checklist, form fields collect important information as you complete the checklist, so you can consolidate everything into and send an outreach email without ever leaving Process Street.
Here’s the social media marketing outreach checklist presented as an embedded template:
Process Street is a BPM software, and you can use it for literally anything that needs a process. Check out this video for more ideas how to use Process Street for your influencer marketing strategy, like how you might streamline the influencer onboarding process:
Usually, if Step 1 to 6 has worked out well for you, then Step 7 plays out pretty smoothly too. Your target should ideally be to get the word out about your campaign; both pre and post need to be done step by step.
Your Influencers play a massive part in bumping up the numbers to make the execution a success, and team players will ensure that this happens.
Step 8: Measure your return on investment (ROI)
The work doesn’t stop post-execution and completion of the campaign. After this, you’ll need to figure out how well your campaign performed by measuring your ROI. Were your objectives achieved? Did you reach the target set? Did your Influencers deliver what they said they would?
This assessment helps you understand where you can improve, what part of the strategy you need to repeat to make your next campaigns successful, and also whether or not the alliance formed with the Influencers would be beneficial for you in the future. Even if you do not see the numbers in terms of sales, seeing an increase in reach and digital presence is just as crucial for your brand.
Step 9: Plan for phase 2
With all your results and data in hand, it’s time to start planning for your next campaign. The key takeaway here is that you shouldn’t stop once you’ve got the ball rolling. Influencer marketing is a continuous process. When you have a set bandwagon of Influencers in hand, it’s smart to build an ongoing relationship with them and carry that forward to your future campaigns as well.
If the partnership works, you’re going to see a boost in following, digital presence, and most definitely in revenue and sales as well. For the bigger picture to become a reality, you need to make a conscious effort to keep rolling out new campaigns and always have your audience engaged with the brand.
Step 10: Move on to the next campaign
As you move on to the next influencer marketing campaign, you’re already going to have a good idea of what has worked for you thus far and what has backfired. Even if you need to go back to the drawing board and start from Step 1, don’t worry. Sometimes it takes a failed campaign to perfect the next one.
A brand needs to typically engage their audience in 5-6 campaigns in a year, although not all of these need to be influencer marketing campaigns. Many brands choose to have a separate set of campaigns dedicated solely to Influencers, and that works out better because the target audience and business goals are more focused.
More social media marketing resources
Business process management is applicable to just about every aspect of your company, from on-page SEO to social media manager daily tasks. Building and using processes for every aspect of the social media influencer marketing strategy can help you to improve success rate and stop wasting time on tedious manual tasks that can easily be automated.
Check out these resources for more ideas how to start implementing marketing processes for your business:
The trends in influencer marketing are continually changing, which is why you need to always be up to speed and ready to take on new challenges.
Recent statistics have shown that brands have seen a significant increase in market presence in a comparatively shorter time due to influencer marketing.
Believe it or not, Forbes claims that it is going to become a $10 billion global industry by the year 2020, so it’d be completely within your interests to cash in on this rapidly growing marketing opportunity.
It’s the ship that might never sink, and you’ve got to make a spot for yourself before it sails away.
How does your influencer marketing strategy differ from this one? Let us know in the comments below. We’re always seeking to improve and expand upon existing processes.
In today’s business world, owners are constantly grappling with concerns and surmounting obstacles, the least of which is actually staying afloat financially in what can be an unforgiving economy.
However, the struggle to turn a profit pales in comparison to some of the harsher consequences of failing to comply with certain regulatory requirements.
Take HRIS broker Zenefits for example. Failure to comply with several licencing regulations issued by the California Department of Insurance landed them a $7million fine.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg; more severe penalties extend to include government bodies compelling you to dissolve your company, and ultimately the endangerment of the lives and well-being of individuals your organization is servicing.
“On a global scale, we are all being asked to do more with less—and for less. At some point soon, the current internal systems will not be able to hold back the deluge, and companies will be faced with a stark decision—consistently improve or perish” – Erik Myhrberg and Joseph Raciti, Practical Field Guide for ISO 13485
Often, these kinds of requirements take the form of the ISO 13485 standard for medical device manufacturers.
In this article, I’ll break down the ISO 13485 standard, from a basic introduction to suggestions and resources for implementing it in your business or organization.
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