I became a Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner not because I believe every team needs a sprint, but because the underlying discipline of Agile changed how I think about impediments. In Scrum, clearing blockers is a primary responsibility. I've carried that instinct into every role I've held, regardless of whether the team ran sprints.
The blockers that slow creative teams are almost always the same: scope that was never fully defined, approvals that require chasing, assets that arrive late with no warning, and feedback cycles that loop back to questions that should have been answered in the brief. My job is to anticipate those friction points before they become delays, and, when they do, to move quickly and transparently to resolve them.
At Bank of the West, I led the Future of Banking executive speaker series and the LEAP multi-city competition, experiential programs that required coordinating vendors, venues, executive stakeholders, and creative teams simultaneously. That kind of work has no room for ambiguity; when something breaks, it breaks in front of people.
In agency environments, Saatchi & Saatchi, Kane & Finkel, and Organic, the pressure was constant, and the timelines were short. The PM's job wasn't to manage a Gantt chart; it was to read the room, know when the creative team needed cover, and know when the client needed honesty.
The through line across all of it: I don't push work through by force. I remove friction so the team can move on their own.