Razorfish Starts New Rapid-Prototyping Practice

Razorfish has carved out a new practice area aimed at helping CMOs get products and services to market more quickly. The initiative is based on the agency's "agile" methodology, in which designers and technologists rapidly create rough drafts of Web sites and digital marketing campaigns, then modify them based on customer feedback.

The idea is to launch projects faster than they could be going through the traditional approach of developing projects to completion before going live. The Razorfish Agile practice led by CTO Ray Velez involves a training program for CMOs to adopt the rapid-prototyping techniques internally as well as understand them better in working with Razorfish.

"CMOs are letting go of their obsession with producing one-shot campaigns based on a single idea," said Velez. "The agile test-and-learn approach is becoming especially popular as CMOs respond to pressure to prove their value constantly through innovation."

Razorfish says it has employed the agile approach for years with clients including AT&T and Ford. More recently, the agency used agile methods to help develop personal finance site Bundle.com., working out of a Razorfish development lab in New York to quickly create a beta version of the site in time for a January 2010 launch.

The new Razorfish practice will encompass 50 experts in the agile system, and the training program will educate clients on topics such as how to schedule and estimate costs for an agile project and how to build teams using the constant-iteration process.