How Agencies Can Be More Agile
June 30, 2010 | Author: Tim Williams
Agencies are still operating in a "full scale" mode, but what's needed today is "agile."
In an attempt to stay true to the overreaching concept of "full service," agencies are in the habit of assigning and assembling complete "account teams" for each major assignment and client. Meanwhile, time and cost pressures are driving in the opposite direction. To better adapt to current client needs, agencies can take a page from software companies who have adopted the concept of "agile" development and production.
This way of working is based on "The Agile Manifesto," which includes the following key concepts:
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective then adjusts its behavior accordingly.
- The team welcomes changing requirements, even late in development.
- The team delivers working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
The jazz ensemble is a good metaphor for how agencies should be organized; small groups who improvise. This is the opposite of the traditional agency model, which is much more like a classical orchestra. *Photo by OhWeh
In an agency environment, this means fewer, better people operating in smaller teams. It means less of a top-down, command-and-control structure and dismantling the cumbersome levels of review and approval that make work slow and expensive. In the agile model, meetings don't require the writer, art director, associate creative director, and executive creative director – they just require one senior creative who is empowered to make day-to-day decisions about the assignment. Same goes for the levels of client service, media, etc.
In many ways, software companies are better models for what agencies could and should look like. The philosophies of iterative development, continual optimization, and test-and-learn are essential to success in a marketing environment in which "good and fast" is better than "perfect and slow."
