Too many competing Marketing Ops Projects? Here’s what to do.

By Automate 2 Inspire

First published March 30, 2022

As a long time marketing ops professional, it has been a distinct pleasure to work with some of the top brands both as a consultant and on the client side as head of marketing ops teams. In the latter capacity, there were many times working for global clients who had multiple competing projects, even hundreds, and prioritizing these in a way that made sense to the stakeholders was always a challenge. Here is one solution to the problem that worked at a couple large enterprise clients.

Problem statement: We have hundreds of tickets to do marketing ops/Salesforce projects and are having trouble prioritizing them in such a way that meets stakeholder needs.

Solution: Create a Technical Project Governance Committee

The Technical Project Governance Committee should be made up of one person from each department that is a stakeholder in the outcome of these projects. At a division of Honeywell, there were 11 people in total, one from each major team: customer success, sales, marketing ops, campaign ops, finance, sales ops, R&D, executive sponsor, IT, Salesforce team member.

1. How to run a Technical Project Governance Committee: In this solution, agile methodology was used with sizing and allocated hours into sprints. Once per quarter, the committee would meet and prioritize 8-10 projects depending upon size for the next quarter. The committee would always include three to four at the bottom in case there was extra time in the sprint to accomplish more projects.

1. How to Prioritize with a Project Governance Committee: With hundreds of tickets available, the Governance Committee gave one vote to each person in the room. Each time a decision was made it had to be by most votes. The executive sponsor of the committee could tie break if needed. There was a sort of bargaining table created with the team. If a person chose not to attend, their vote was lost and any projects that person had in the project list would be held until the next meeting. Therefore, team members took this meeting very seriously.

In doing this approach, it was clear to all departments and to the executive team that there is a finite amount of work that can be done in a 12-week period. In the example above, there was four 3-week sprints and then priorities were reassessed.

While this approach may not work for all companies, it surely helped the division of Honeywell manage workload, avoid burnout, and increase results.

PS. If you need some support from a team who has been there and done that....feel free to reach out and have a no-fee consult. We are a team of consultants who have also served roles for worldwide marketing ops teams on staff. We offer a relatable approach that builds relationships over time. We have been told it's refreshing, but you be the judge. Contact us here.