Taubmans paint launches new website using Agile delivery via digital agency TheFARM

Taubmans paint, a division of PPG has launched its new website, designed and built by TheFARM using Agile delivery techniques as opposed to the sequential Waterfall techniques used by the majority of design and marketing agencies.

Click here to visit the website.

Sequential Waterfall techniques are when all details are agreed up front and little change is accepted during delivery. Agile delivery of projects has long been used in large-scale software development, but is seldom seen in agency project delivery.

When Taubmans, an existing client, approached TheFARM with the challenge of refreshing their website, technical director Simon Waight and executive producer Dave Blake, both versed in Agile delivery processes, proposed an Agile delivery process to the Taubmans team.

Says Waight: “TheFARM has always been a collaborative agency, working closely with our customers to deliver their vision. In the case of the new Taubmans website we felt we could take this to a whole new level and leverage the Agile focus on rapid delivery of value to people to help produce a rich experience in a short timeframe. We couldn’t be happier with the outcome”

Agile delivery is based on iterative and incremental development, where solutions evolve through constant collaboration between cross functional teams. Hallmarks of the methodology include adaptive planning, evolutionary development and a rapid and flexible response to change.

TheFARM’s delivery of the Taubmans website began with a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimate that lead to an initial planning phase, where TheFARM and Taubmans worked together to create a shared vision for the site. Consistent with the Agile Manifesto, this vision was used as a guide to steer and shape how the new website was brought to life. Key outputs from planning phase were an understanding of key metrics for Taubmans, personas for key user groups, and the feasibility of technical platforms based on Taubmans’ budget and requirements.

Collaboration between TheFARM and Taubmans led to research and consumer insights via workshops that provided a vision of Taubmans’ target customer: the colour interested, who have an idea of what they want in a paint, but need a little bit of help finding inspiration to finalise their colour decision. The next step was to create a roadmap of how the website could be delivered over time and the creation of a Product Backlog of items required to for the site.

The Product Backlog was captured in Microsoft’s new cloud Team Foundation Service which also hosted source code and managed automated deployments to Windows Azure. The build of the website utilised fortnightly Sprints with a showcase at the end of each Sprint where Taubmans were able to see progress on the work, provide feedback, and review work for the next Sprint.

TheFARM’s Agile approach provided Taubmans with an efficient, transparent delivery process resulting in a website that both Taubmans and TheFARM are proud of: a people-centric website focused on Taubmans business objective – providing inspiration that would lead to paint sales.

Says Nadine Miller-Vachon, Taubmans’ marketing manager: “I have launched a number of websites in my previous roles but this is the first time I have worked with the agile process. The process kept us focused on delivering on the final product, enabling us to deep dive into the consumer journey and deliver what the consumer well and truly wants. We were thrilled with both the process and outcome.”