There are several theories about why a company’s innovation projects, whether for big data or artificial intelligence, are failing. Some argue that nothing’s wrong with the technology; it’s the culture that keeps companies stuck.

Indeed, many innovation plans are woefully out of step with the pace at which innovation is happening in the world, according to Vittorio Viarengo (pictured), vice president of marketing, cloud business unit, at McAfee LLC.

“Everything is frantically pretending to know what’s going to happen next year and building plans that go out 12 months,” he said. “That never pans out.”

A year-by-year innovation plan doesn’t hack it in today’s world of warp-speed change. This is why the Scrum methodology — originated for software development — works in lots of other areas of business nowadays. It implements projects through agile, iterative sips rather than hard-to-swallow gulps. Viarengo employs it in the marketing department at McAfee.

Viarengo spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the The Conference Board’s Innovation Master Class event in Palo Alto, California. They discussed how the Scrum method can help marketing teams achieve innovation goals.

Surprising success recipe: small potatoes and green horns

The best approach to realizing innovation goals is to align everyone around them and then decentralize their execution, according to Viarengo. Look at the goals in abstract, and then get input from teams and individuals on how they ought to do the work involved.

It’s not a one-year marathon. Instead, goals are broken into much more doable two-week sprints. “I say, ‘OK, what are most important priorities for the next two weeks?’ I tell the team, and then the team tells me what we need to do to achieve those goals,” Viarengo stated.

Some companies get hung up on Scrum guidelines that don’t contribute much to real gains. Take the daily stand-up meeting, for instance. “People that are obsessed with that — they don’t get agile,” he added.

Agile is constant communication regarding crisp, well-defined priorities, Viarengo explained. This communication should allow everyone to contribute useful input. “It gives an amazing platform for even junior people in the team to step up,” he said. “Sometimes in a hierarchical structure, you have somebody junior really good that is boxed in the corner.”

With Scrum, priorities are spelled out; if the greenest horn on the team can deliver a way to move the needle forward, good for him or her, Viarengo concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of The Conference Board’s Innovation Master Class event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE