This article was written by Elana Varon, and a version of it originally appeared on the Adobe-owned site CMO.com. For more information about BrandSpeak, clickhere.

Agile management methods, experts say, provide a framework for making better decisions and improving overall productivity.

"One focus of agility is understanding the relative value of the initiatives you want to work on and prioritizing them," said Barre Hardy, senior director with marketing consultancy CMG Partners. "A lot of companies are not great at doing that today."

But there's potential for big improvements to how CMOs manage marketing initiatives, if the results from software development, where the methodology originated, are any guide. A survey by VersionOne of IT organizations that use agile methods found 90% of respondents improved their ability to manage changing priorities, 85% increased productivity, and 84% improved project visibility as well as team morale. (VersionOne sells tools used for agile software development.)

CMO.com talked to marketers at three companies in different industries about their paths to greater agility. Here's what they said.