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:

1. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
2. Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.
3. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective then adjusts its behavior accordingly.
4. The team welcomes changing requirements, even late in development.
5. 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."

The Unintended Consequences of the Billable Hour

June 16, 2010 | Author: Tim Williams

The harmless-looking timesheet produces a variety of exceptionally harmful effects in professional service firms like agencies.

You can read the following comments from real people in real agencies and draw your own conclusions about the tyranny of billable time.

"Agency management gives mixed messages about what the agency values. We promise projects to clients with the lowest possible amount of hours, then are told to manage written-off time. The idea is that we can squeeze efficiencies out of the creative process, which can't be done. So we have to decide where to go the extra step to make the project great, then listen to complaints about write-offs, or we have to decide to come in at the budget level, and not put extra effort into producing great work for the client."

"The competition for client budgets within our own agency hurts our collaboration. There is no incentive for me to bring in other team members to work on a project, because they take budgeted hours away from my department, making us less 'profitable.' So while there is a greater agency profitability from collaborating and doing better quality work, it is undermined by departmental 'profitability.'"

"I am basically penalized every time I contribute to an agency-related project such as our blog, recruiting new people, looking for new business prospects, or developing myself professionally. Because if I do any of those things, my "billable hours" drop, as defined by the agency. This is a mark against my productivity."

"People in salaried positions (which is most of us) often feel like we are treated as hourly workers with the 'billable hour' mentality."

"Project estimates based on hours essentially plot one department against another for billable work."

"Because everyone is so concerned with being billable, new employees aren't getting trained."

"The focus on write-offs is driving creative talent away from the agency. If I could write a piece faster, I would, because I have other work to move on to. Sometimes I work really fast and get it right on the first draft. Sometimes I work really slow because I can't find the right opening paragraph. Sometimes I'm going back to make something that's a little weak stronger. You can make more money off the best work I produce than you can the quick work I produce. Because no client we have can duplicate my best work. They can all duplicate my quick work."

"The hyper attitudes of management about "writing off time" means there's no appetite for us to collaborate, experiment, or explore new ideas. Our incentive isn't to innovate, it's to manage our time to the estimate."

While I've paraphrased and edited a few of these comments (to protect the identities of the creators), they represent what Ignition hears consistently in the many internal surveys we do with marketing communication firms across North America and Europe. Besides being an ineffective way for agencies to capture the tremendous value they create for their clients, the billable time system actually inhibits agencies from internal collaboration, professional development, and innovation. It creates a system where efficiency reigns at the expense of effectiveness. And if marketing isn't effective, nothing else matters.