Maximizing Project Relationships

Presented by Tim Williams
Ignition Consulting Group
@ignitiongroup
A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT
HOW TO THRIVE IN
A PROJECT-BASED
ENVIRONMENT

FAST-TURN PROJECTS, FAST-TURN RELATIONSHIPS
“Decideware's Agency Lifecycle Management Platform
offers advertisers an unrivaled opportunity to select the
best agency for each assignment, control the scopes of
work, develop briefs, and manage a highly productive
relationship.”

“Recognizing the world’s best achievements in
advertising collaboration.”

“A collection of the best campaigns in the world, harnessing the
power of multiple agencies and multiple stakeholders.”

ANA Client/Agency Report 2015
“Brieﬁngs are more complicated now than ever.
Media is hyper-fragmented, clients are working
with multiple agencies, there is more project work,
the pace of change is faster than ever, and
agencies have been disintermediated due to
factors including clients using more in-house
resources, production decoupling, and clients
working directly with media companies.”
Enhancing
CLIENT AGENCY
Relationships
Sharing Marketing Excellence
2015 ANA Survey Research Executive Summary
ANA surveys are based on topics identiﬁed by the ANA and its membership
as critical issues and emerging trends that nearly all marketers face today.

JOINT TASK FORCE ON IMPACT OF PROJECT WORK

“We have always relied on the agency model because there was
something they were providing that in-house agencies did not," says
ANA CEO Bob Liodice. "But is the value equation with the agency still
there? Are marketers still ﬁnding there is value in working with outside
partners?"
"I think that in general, agencies are having a more challenging time
staying one step ahead of the marketer," Mr. Liodice said.

How and why
is this happening?
HOW TO THRIVE IN A PROJECT-BASED ENVIRONMENT

Clayton Christensen
Harvard Business School
Author and leading thinker on disruptive innovation
“Their growing sophistication leads
clients to disaggregate services,
reducing their reliance on one-stop
providers. They are becoming savvy
about assessing the jobs they need
done and funnel work to the ﬁrms
most appropriate for those jobs.”

Explosion of products and brands
Globalization of marketing
Increasing complexity of channels
Proliferation of different message types
Mashups of agency services through acquisitions
Growing expertise and sophistication of clients
= Speciﬁc agencies hired for speciﬁc needs

How agencies can
effectively respond

Solve better
Deliver better
Price better
MAKING THE MOST OF A PROJECT-BASED ENVIRONMENT

Solve better
“We have years of
experience in the
hospital category, so
developing a campaign
to announce your new
cardiac center will be a
great fit for us. We’ll be
able to start developing
ideas right away.”
“The fact that we don’t
have a lot of hospital
marketing experience
means we’ll be able to
bring fresh thinking to
the category. We can
develop ideas for your
new cardiac center that
will break new ground.”

“We have years of
experience in the
hospital category, so
developing a campaign
to announce your new
cardiac center will be a
great fit for us. We’ll be
able to start developing
ideas right away.”
The fact that we don’t
have a lot of hospital
marketing experience
means we’ll be able to
bring fresh thinking to
the category. We can
develop ideas for your
new cardiac center that
will break new ground.
In a project-based
environment,
category experience
is a not only a strong
external competitive
advantage, but
produces important
internal advantages
as well.
Solve better

Dear Jenna:
Thanks for your inquiry about our services.
To give you a little background about our
agency, we specialize in helping clients name,
position, market and grow their businesses,
organizations, products and services.
Our clients range from start-ups to the Fortune
500, nonproﬁts, private companies and the
government sector. Over the years, we have
worked in virtually every business sector.
Thanks again for your interest, and we look
forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
James Creely
Business Development Director
Jim Creely
Mid-size independent agency

Dear Jenna:
Thanks for your inquiry about our services.
To give you a little background about our
agency, we specialize in helping clients name,
position, market and grow their businesses,
organizations, products and services.
Our clients range from start-ups to the Fortune
500, nonproﬁts, private companies and the
government sector. Over the years, we have
worked in virtually every business sector.
Thanks again for your interest, and we look
forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
James Creely
Jenna Brown
Chief Marketing Ofﬁcer
Major U.S. theme park

Assign your team based on:
1. Category experience
2. Functional expertise
Solve better

Concept or ready to publish?
Solve better

Generate lots of ideas (fast). You need to cover a lot of ground in order
to best solve the problem. Use broad gestures and leave the ﬁnishing
work for later. (Can 100 options be generated in an hour?)
Use low-ﬁdelity prototyping. The goal is to solve the problem, so work
as loose as possible early in the process. Think in terms of “minimum
viable product.”
Eric Karjaluoto
smashLAB
Tim Malbon
Made By Many
X
Solve better

100 MPH THINKING
The goal: 50 ideas in 15 minutes
Combines two fundamental principles of
creative thinking: quantity and speed.
Aim for quantity; the quality will emerge.
Tom Monahan
Creative Coach,
Author
Solve better

SCOPE OF WORK
“What are you trying to
accomplish?”
“What do you need?”
SCOPE OF VALUE
Solve better

SCOPE OF VALUE
“What are you trying to
accomplish?”
Beyond on-time
and on-budget,
what are the KPIs
for this project?
Transactional Incremental sales, cost per lead, store trafﬁc,
trial rate, gross impressions, etc.
Behavioral
Website unique visitors, page views,
inquiries, social media analytics, etc.
Attitudinal Brand consideration, brand preference, intent
to purchase, brand likeability, etc.
Solve better

Deliver better
High utilization in agencies almost always
leads to delays in agency workflow.
Queuing Theory
Stop running your agency at maximum capacity

MANUFACTURING
Activities are
standardized,
predictable and
repeatable.
Near 100%
capacity is
theoretically
possible.
KNOWLEDGE WORK
Activities are
customized,
variable, and
subject to change.
Operating near or
over capacity (true
for most agencies)
means chronic
problems with
past-due work,
errors, and sub-
optimal quality.
Deliver better

vs.
AGILE
WATERFALL
Deliver better

1. High-trust environment (vs. heavyweight approval and oversight)
Rights and and accompanying responsibilities are delegated to
the teams. Individual responsibility for deadlines, self-organization
and time management.
2. Solving a problem, not checking off tasks Agile teams aren’t
just executing tasks, they’re solving a problem, which means
corresponding tasks can change. Agile is interested in the
objective, not the “scope of work.”
3. Simplicity Breaking work down into its simplest components.
Maximizing the amount of work not done. Number of in-
progress” tasks for team should not exceed number of team
members
4. Ruthless prioritization and reprioritization ("Backlog Grooming”).
The most important work gets done first; less important work
might not get done at all.
10 KEY AGILE PRINCIPLES
Deliver better

5. Single-tasking, not multitasking Setting strict “WIP limits” (Work in
Progress). Minimizing interruptions in order to optimize individual
and team “flow.”
6. Avoiding handoffs to maximize efficiency benefits.
7. Low-fidelity prototyping Developing and presenting solutions in
the roughest possible form; putting the work and emphasis on the
idea, concept, solution, saving all finish work for after the solution is
approved.
8. Deep client involvement Teams include the client as an actual
team member and involve the client at the earliest possible stages,
both for input and buy in. Avoiding any kind of “big reveal” to the
client or any other team member.
KEY AGILE PRINCIPLES
Deliver better

Deliver better
ONE PIECE WORKFLOW

“Most agency people
spend less than 35% of
their time in productive
“flow” time. Why?
Because of the noise that
results from constant
interruptions in the
agency environment.”
Jack Skeels
Agency Agile
Deliver better

PROJECT BRIEF
AGILE ALSO PROVIDES A
BETTER FRAMEWORK FOR
FORECASTING COSTS AND
ALLOCATING RESOURCES
Deliver better

BEYOND HOURS
A BETTER WAY TO FORECAST YOUR COSTS
Task: Writing 1,500 words of copy for an email campaign
Duration
“Normal” amount of time required to accomplish this task
4.0
Difﬁculty
Requirements for specialized knowledge, which may require additional
personal research; likelihood this task unexpected complexity
Difficulty = Duration x 100%
4.0
Dependency
Degree to which this task will be affected by an unresponsive/indecisive client
or complicated approval process that is likely to cause rework
Dependency = Duration x 50%
2.0
10.0
Deliver better

1. Assign dedicated resources, let them participate in evaluating the amount of work
required and have them set and commit to milestones for each phase of work.
2. Once the project begins, minimize interruptions. Leave your team alone to get the
job done — don’t waste their time reminding them how many “hours” they’ve used
or have remaining. (They don’t work to hours anyway.)
3. As a manager, stay focused on two questions 1) Are we within scope? 2) Are we
meeting our deadlines? Track scope and progress, not hours.
4. Optimize effectiveness by minimizing the number of times a project is “touched.”
5. Encourage single-tasking in place of multi-tasking. Let small teams complete
chunks of work one at a time if possible.
AGILE PRINCIPLES THAT WORK IN AGENCIES

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
You’ve scoped and priced a project to design six three-page sections of a
new website. You carefully specified the number of concepts and number
of revisions that would be provided as part of the scope. You assigned a
talented team who has good experience in the client’s category.
The account director on the business reviews time reports and discovers
the job is “out of hours,” yet the project is far from being completed. The
account director calls the client to ask for more money, because she knows
if this project goes “over estimate,” she’ll be in trouble in with agency
management.
What’s wrong with this situation?
Deliver better

Using hours to manage projects is like
depending on the smell of burnt cookies
to monitor the heat of your oven.
Deliver better

① Scope statement
② Constraints
③ Project structure
④ Role deﬁnition
⑤ Phases and milestones
⑥ Assumptions
⑦ Deliverables
⑧ Functional requirements
⑨ Project change control
⑩ Approval process
DEFINING SCOPE

Engagement
Management Project
Management
Deliver better

① Bring new consumer insights
② Develop solutions that can live in multiple
communications channels
③ Collaborate internally to insure that the best
ideas emerge
④ Contribute solutions that transcend advertising
⑤ Provide ideas without waiting to be asked
⑥ Be more focused on results and take
responsibility for effectiveness
⑦ Make sure your best talent is contributing to
the business
⑧ Show leadership in digital marketing
⑨ Continually test and optimize
⑩ Identify and explore new channels and
approaches
① Respond in a timely way to client requests
② Develop complete, accurate scope definitions
③ Effectively allocate and manage agency
resources
④ Accurately estimate and manage costs; ensure
timely and accurate client billing
⑤ Secure internal and external approvals, ensure
compliance
⑥ Deliver accurate and error-free work
⑦ Catalogue, organize and manage brand assets
⑧ Keep clients informed, constantly
communicate progress to all stakeholders
⑨ Ensure adherence to deadlines
⑩ Effectively coordinate with other agencies
CLIENTS WANT … BUT THEY ALSO WANT
PROJECT MANAGER ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
Deliver better

How many of you have ever read a book about pricing?
Price better

Three non-truths related to pricing,
proﬁtability, and project work
We’ll recoup our upfront investment in spec on the back end
(No you won’t)
1
We’ll recoup our losses later in the relationship
(No you won’t)
2
We’ll make it up on the next project
(No you won’t)
3
Price better

Not a fair ﬁght
OUR CLIENTS ARE
PROFESSIONAL BUYERS
Price better

Not a fair ﬁght
AMATEUR SELLERS
Price better
PROFESSIONAL BUYERS

Outcomes
Outputs
Inputs
PERCEIVED
VALUE
Price better
Hours
Labor
Time
INPUTS
PriceCost
THE LANGUAGE
OF COST
THE LANGUAGE
OF VALUE

Strategy
Concept
Production
Distribution
Implementation
Analysis
Measurement
Insights Optimization
Perceived value to
the client
The Agency “Smile Curve”
Price charged by
the agency
Price better

A CRASH COURSE IN PRICING PSYCHOLOGY
While absolute cost is a reality, there is no such thing as absolute value. Buyers can often
only ascertain the value of something in comparison to something else.
Price better

Solve better
Deliver better
Price better
LET’S EVALUATE

“AOR relationships are pretty much dead as
advertisers increase and fragment their
agency rosters to cover a wide range of
disciplines.
Advertisers are increasingly managing the
integration of their agencies. Each
individual agency has a smaller and more
passive role to play within the total roster.”
Michael Farmer
Farmer & Company

“We continue to drive
marketing productivity
through an optimized
mix of working and
non-working dollars.”
Jon Moeller
Chief Financial Officer
Procter & Gamble
WORKING DOLLARS NON-WORKING DOLLARS

MICRO-MOMENTS WITH CONSUMERS
SPECIALIZED NEEDS FROM MARKETERS
VITAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR AGENCIES
TURNING PROJECT-BASED WORK
INTO A GROWTH OPPORTUNITY

WHAT’S SCARCE IS VALUABLE
“The only things that are scarce in today’s interconnected
world are the things that are difﬁcult, and the only things
that are valuable are the things that are scarce.
When we intentionally seek out the difﬁcult tasks, we're
much more likely to actually create value."
Seth Godin
Marketing Author

5 QUESTIONS
1.
IS WHAT YOU DO SCARCE,
OR IS IT WIDELY AVAILABLE?

CAN EVERYBODY ELSE DO WHAT YOU DO?

CAN EVERYBODY ELSE DO WHAT YOU DO?
IN-HOUSE AGENCIES
MEDIA-OWNED
AGENCIES

TO TURN PROJECT-BASED WORK INTO
A GROWTH OPPORTUNITY:
Remember that there’s
“margin in mystery.”
TURNING PROJECT-BASED WORK INTO A GROWTH OPPORTUNITY IGNITION CONSULTING GROUP | WWW.IGNITIONGROUP.COM

2.
DO YOUR CLIENTS HIRE YOU
BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU
KNOW OR WHAT YOU DO?
5 QUESTIONS

WHAT DO YOUR CLIENTS AND PROSPECTS CARE ABOUT?
“MY CATEGORY, MY MARKET, MY CUSTOMER”

Product Leadership
Market Expertise
Operational Innovation
WHERE CAN YOU BE BEST IN CLASS?

10 WAYS TO DEFINE BEST IN CLASS
1. What business categories or industries do we know best?
2. What types of audiences or market segments do we know best?
3. Which stages of the customer journey do we know best?
4. Which consumer touch points do we know best?
5. Which communications channels do we know best?
6. What types of organizational business models do we know best?
7. Which of our services or solution sets are world class?
8. What are our uniquely effective approaches to solving marketing problems?
9. What distinctive knowledge allows us to deliver more client value?
10. How do we manage or leverage resources in distinctly valuable ways?

TO TURN PROJECT-BASED WORK INTO
A GROWTH OPPORTUNITY:
Sell expertise
instead of versatility

3.
DO YOU MAKE YOUR
MARGINS ON IDEATION OR
IMPLEMENTATION?
5 QUESTIONS

TWO TYPES OF
WORK
Ideation
Innovation
Problem Solving
Production
Implementation
Distribution
TWO TYPES OF
EXPERTISE
Production Solutions
Speciﬁcations
Solutions Architecture
Conceptual Solutions
Prototypes
Brand Architecture
TWO TYPES OF
VALUE
Higher Perceived Value
Customized
High Client Involvement
Lower Perceived Value
Standardized
Low Client Involvement

DIFFERENT PHASES OF WORK CARRY DIFFERENT VALUE WITH CLIENTS
DECOUPLING

DIFFERENT PHASES OF WORK CARRY DIFFERENT VALUE WITH CLIENTS
SOLVE DRIVE BUILD

IPG
WPP
The Agency Business Decoupled:
Marketing Implementation Agencies

OMNICOM
PUBLICIS
The Agency Business Decoupled:
Marketing Implementation Agencies

TO TURN PROJECT-BASED WORK
INTO A GROWTH OPPORTUNITY:
Offer decoupled
services in place of the
traditional vertically-
integrated approach

4.
HAVE YOU TRADED
LEGACY WORKFLOW
MANAGEMENT FOR THE
PRINCIPLES OF AGILE?
5 QUESTIONS

FASTER AND BETTER:
7 KEY OBSTACLES
AGENCIES MUST OVERCOME
1. Legacy paper-based workflow systems or minimal adoption/usage of existing software
2. In place of a 21st century management platform, reliance on 25-year old technology (email)
to manage projects, distribute assets, track information and collaborate with colleagues
3. Little visibility into actual available resources, leading to chronic overcapacity, overlapping
projects, simultaneous priorities and constant reassignment of deadlines
4. Incomplete scope definition on the front end and ineffective scope management on the
back end, causing rework and overwork with no additional compensation
5. Lack of built-in flexibility for adding/subtracting talent to help ease the burden when things
are busy or reduce the costs when things are slow

Adopt agile principles
to transform your
workflow management

5.
DO YOU BELIEVE PROFITABLE
GROWTH IS ACHIEVED BY
FOCUSING ON UTILIZATION
OR ACCOUNTABILITY?
5 QUESTIONS

Are we busy
and billable?
Are we doing a superior job of
scoping and pricing assignments,
allocating the right resources,
managing scope, and delivering
on deadline?
UTILIZATION VS. ACCOUNTABILITY

Utilization Organization Accountability Organization
Objective Everyone busy Everything done
Monitoring Hours Work completed
Estimating Hours “Size” (effort, difﬁculty, risk, etc.)
Hiring When we’re “too busy” When work is not getting done
Motivation To be “billable” To get things done
Success Metrics Inputs measured by the ﬁrm Outcomes produced for clients
Source: David Rice, “Utilization vs. Accountability: Which is More Important”
UTILIZATION VS. ACCOUNTABILITY

Build a culture focused
on accountability, not
“busyness.”

Think of the new project-
based environment as a
“beautiful constraint” that can
inspire and fuel the needed
transformations in your firm

THE SILVER LINING FOR SMALLER AGENCIES

Presented by Tim Williams
Ignition Consulting Group
@TimWilliamsICG
www.ignitiongroup.com
twilliams@ignitiongroup.com
www.linkedin.com/in/TimWilliamsICG
www.IgnitionPropulsion.com
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Maximizing Project Relationships

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