Media and Creative: Live together or die together.

Stakes are higher now than ever for success - actually, high stakes for our survival are more like it. The level of dysfunction between agencies (and the various parties within), clients and publishers continues to elevate as campaigns gain complexity and economic pressure increases. To focus a bit: collaboration between media and creative teams, whether from the same or different agencies, has got to improve.

Gunther Sonnerfeld, in his March 13, iMedia Connection piece, Why Media and Creative Need to Cross the Aisle, addresses the topic to a degree, but veers into the high-ground of " . . . when innovation is the key to success." As PM's we are painfully aware: great thinking isn't worth the PPT it's printed on if you can't execute.

It never ceases to amaze me how seasoned, high-performing industry veterans, who know, work with and respect each other, will claim that the other's agency/team is nightmare to partner with. All day, everyday very smart people across the industry, including very senior talent, are mired in the collateral damage of poor partnerships.

Along the campaign development continuum, from Initiation to Deployment & Diagnosis, there are key activities and deliverables that require media/creative alignment in order to get projects out on-time, on-budget, on-spec - let alone reaching Sonnerfeld's ideal of innovation or, even high-quality. Below are some key milestones, grouped by project phase. Let's play a little game: See how many you recognize as dys-integration pain-points from your past experience (and likely, your future ones):

INITIATION PHASE

• Client Request:
  Always hear about this in time?
  
  
• Brief (Media, Creative, Project ):
  Integrated?
  

DEFINITION PHASE

• Strategic Recommendation:
  Always considers both medium and message?
  
  
• User Experience or Design & Channel Roles:
  Full customer journey considered?
  
  
• Measures of Success:
  Ever see CTR driving a branding campaign or humor/animation that impedes reaching desired response objectives?
  

DESIGN PHASE

• Media Consideration Set:
  Creative folks have an opinion on where/when ads should run?
  
  
• Conceptual Designs & Prototypes:
  Media folks have any thoughts on whether units will work or what the competition has already done?
  

DEVELOPMENT PHASE

• Specifications:
  Red Meat! Don't even know where to begin on this one!
  
  
• Main Ad Units:
  Wish you'd seen/shown to your partners before client buried you?
  
  
• Unique Units, Odd Sizes & Resizes:
  Too many / too few? LCD issues? Show client all units or assume because client approved the main ones, the others are approved?

DEPLOYMENT PHASE

• Traffic:
  Ever resent a site,media or creative partner for caving and saying they can turn around in 1 day?
  
  
• QA:
  Listed after Traffic intentionally. Ever wish you checked yourself, before trafficking?

DIAGNOSIS PHASE

• See comments re: Measures of Success in Definition Phase section above:
  How good are you at arguing both pro and con DL study results? Have enough time / budget / data to optimize creative?

There are a myriad of best-practices to be applied to address issues across this broad a spectrum. They all include better, more timely communication between media and creative teams / agencies. As far as serving the client, we only succeed together. In terms of CYA, if your partner blows up, the shrapnel could be headed your way.

Kill the Post-Mortem

It's a commonly held best-practice to perform a Post-Mortem session following a project - especially one that doesn't go very well. I strongly support this practice and, along with teams I've worked with, have benefited considerably from them over the years.

One common risk with these, shall we say, charged events is that they become finger-pointing exercises (or chair-throwing if things really get out of hand). The typical objective is to generate actionable insights that improve the chance of success going forward. Obviously a certain amount of look-back is critical to the process but this should be done with an eye towards the future. To those ends, I've found the following to be helpful:

PRE-SESSION

• Do some info gathering w/a broad range of stakeholders.
  
• Identify areas to Sustain and areas to Improve. Including items to sustain helps keep a positive focus and is, of course, instructive.
  
• Capture the initial observations on a grid (see sample below) that lists project phases down the left and disciplines involved across the top (note the presence of the client) - you can even divide each cell into Sustain / Improve subcells.
  
• Use this info to help formulate your sense of what really happened and where you'd like to take the meeting.
  
• Don't shy away from your instincts and ideas about what happened and definitely have a strong notion of what positive outcomes will be for the meeting.
  
• Preview the grid and your ideas with a small number of key stakeholders and enlist their support around driving towards (not precisely at) your vision of positive outcomes.
  

SESSION

• Choose a person to facilitate the session. Common sense is your guide here: ideally someone who can work dispassionately and has the strength and intelligence to deal with, shall we say, "passion".
  
• Be clear about session objectives, desired outcomes, ground rules and keep a parking lot for issues that are not directly relevant or too deep for the scope of the meeting - you are not going to solve deeply rooted agency issues in this meeting.
  
• Distribute the grid and share your thoughts on its value and how you want it used (fill it in further, just a guide, etc).
  
• Allow for some venting, but keep the session moving.
  
• Many process or change management initiatives jump too quickly to detailed solutions - a shared vision of the way things should be is a prerequisite for changing the way things are.
  
• Recap findings and next steps.
  

POST SESSION

• Share outcomes w/broader team
  
• Publicly call out strong contributors
  
• Implement and educate about any changes to the organizations processes, tools and documentation (or FINALLY commit to creating them)
  
• Refer to the session as related issues (or the same damn ones) come up on other projects
  

KILL THE POST-MORTEM

Improvement is cyclical and iterative. The best way to avoid the tragedies that drive the need to conduct painful post-mortems, is to start out correctly in the first place (see: post on Project Initiation). Good Pre-Natal activities and health are the best way to avoid the slaughter that necessitates the Post-Mortem.

The Best Predictor of Project Outcome - Project Initiation

I have developed and deployed numerous tools, techniques and templates that assist in completing high-quality projects on-time, on-budget and on-spec. However, the best aides in the world are of little use, without a framework or a way of thinking that guides their use.

The central idea of the framework that I advocate is that up-stream investments pay down-stream dividends. If you don't start right, it's difficult to finish that way. Simple idea, yes, but in the common rush to complete and succeed in an agency, groups of highly intelligent professionals (i.e. the team) frequently devolve into a 3-ring circus. "Ready, Fire, Aim" is a prevalent and unfortunate reality of day-to-day agency life.
Up-stream activities, such as information gathering, synthesis and dissemination are the preventive medicine that keeps agencies healthy.

COURSE-SETTING to avoid COURSE-CORRECTING!

Now, one doesn't want to get carried away. This orientation should not be misconstrued as a recommendation that the end-state should, or even can be, known at the outset of a complex engagement. In fact, the very value that project managers bring to the table - thoughtfulness about process, planning and up-stream focus, can choke the life out of the place if applied rigidly. There is value to be lifted and applied from both waterfall (stringent) and agile (flexible) methodologies.

Perhaps a bit overstated in terms of the uselessness placed on plans, this quote frames the issue well:

In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ike realized that the very act of planning and the frame of mind that it creates, lays the groundwork for intelligently dealing with challenges.

Do yourself and your teams a favor and apply effort up front. The finest minds in an agency are a valuable resource to be used wisely. Time spent in the early phases of a project is a far more effective than time spent scrambling to find and apply resources hours before a deadline.

Document Management - Where is the latest version of xyz?

Not being able to find the soft copy (the latest version!) of a printed document is pretty high on the list of things at an agency that drive me nuts.

INSERT FILENAME & PATH!

To combat the effects of short, mid and long-term memory loss - effectively saving myself from myself, I have become reliant on inserting a field that dynamically generates the filename and path in the footer of all of my Microsoft Office documents. Combined with a proper file-naming convention, a "bread-crumb" path to the exact server or local hard-drive location of a document printed on the bottom of your document is invaluable. As far as I know, this doesn't work in PowerPoint, but as a bonus, it works like a charm in Microsoft Project.

I'm not going to go into detail on how to do this. It's easy enough to find out on the Microsoft site. As an example, you can find the instructions for Microsoft Word, in the Quick Reference Card on the Microsoft site.

If you've ever had the joy of updating a document from an older version, while a deadline or your boss is looming, you will agree that taking the time to include this in your and your team's SOP is worth the effort. The job you save may be your own.

Client Management - The answer is, "maybe"

Successfully managing client relationships, especially in these pressured times, takes the combined efforts of skilled interactive agency professionals. More PM's have lost more hair (or at least their coloring to gray) hearing phrases like, "XYZ Account person told the client that, we could do "it" and still meet the schedule. S/He made no mention of a potential fee increases."

I have toiled, presented, implored, cajoled, collaborated and otherwise tried to influence agency Account people not to play the game of, "Client says, 'jump', we say, 'how high'?" or to look at the advice/insult another way, to stop being "yes-(wo)men" (I can assure any offended Account people that this is a mild characterization compared to those bandied about an agency - especially in the wee hours of the morning.) Among the many benefits of removing the instant, "yes" are that it would take some pressure off of the PM's, who invariable are vilified when they assess the situation and have to say, "no".

The aim is to migrate towards more of aconsultative answer of, "maybe". Ideally, towards an Account Management-response along the lines of, "Client, I understand the request, let me talk to superwoman-PM back at the office, see how we can address this. I will get back to you ASAP with a recommendation and let you know if there are any impacts to the project's scope, timing or pricing." This is not a bait and switch. It actually gives the agency some time to thoughtfully address the request and be fairly compensated if there is a legitimate change in scope.

When discussing this issue with a wise agency president, he suggested that one way to facilitate the migration of yes-(wo)men on the Account team to the maybe column was to also move the PM's to the maybe column. He posited that one reason PM's are often met with resistance or, worse avoidance, is that in their zeal to defend, PM's can become very problem-oriented vs being solution-oriented - effectively turning themselves into "no-(wo)men". If PM's reflexive response was also, "maybe, let's see what we can come up with", the partnership would benefit, friction diminished, and the ecosystem would be better aligned for success.

Entry-Level Project Managers - Pound for Pound, the Best PM's in the Biz

This is a send up to entry-level Project Managers. At 0 - 1 year of experience, vetted for the core PM skills: intelligence, work ethic and common sense, Associate/Assistant Project Managers are an invaluable part of any PM team.

There are more moving pieces, parts, assets, paperwork and points of contact to be managed than ever before in building Web sites or developing online advertising campaigns today.

An APM can elevate the performance of an entire PM team. Beyond the direct benefits of the myriad of listing, vetting, and distributing of tasks that APM's take on, they enable other members of the PM team to focus on higher-level activities and deliverables. Further, their presence gives more senior members of the team an opportunity to mentor and manage to the benefit of all.

I love having these smart, motivated, young guns around. Their on-boarding helps validate the efficacy of tools and methodologies, and contributes to process and tool evolution. These new-entrants also bring a native's view of new technologies and trends and inject much-needed energy into the "old school" of some agencies. Mike Carlton, of Carlton Associates Inc, is particularly compelling on this topic and related ones in his piece, Who's Going to Do the Work?

The best APM's invariably gain mastery of the support skills in a few months (right, if they can't then their probably not cut out for PM'ing?) and begin taking on higher-level tasks themselves. This doesn't hurt the agency bottom line and definitely raises the bar for everyone. Further, there's nothing like someone w/half the experience and salary, nipping at heels to keep a team on their toes - especially those prone to sluggishness (you know who I'm talking about, right?).

From an overall agency perspective, a junior PM role, with exposure to so many aspects of an advertising agency, is the perfect farm league for feeding all the disciplines in an agency. One could go so far as to say that all entry-level employees would do well with a rotation in PM.

If you've got 'em make the most of it. If not, you would do well to add an entry level PM if you are able. The job/agency you save, could be your own!

Advertising Agency Compensation - Exploring Alternatives

The premise here is simple: aligning agencies and clients around results, rather than squabbling about costs and time, which further drives the commoditization of agency services, is a win/win situation. Ad agencies are in a fight for survival. The opportunity for the brave and innovative to flourish has never been greater than right now. For those who don't/can't start thinking differently, look out for the tar pits.

This post takes up on some of themes introduced in the December 5th post, Achieving Balance in an Agency, where the value of certain agency activities and deliverables (e.g. a breakthrough idea) was examined.

Value-based pricing is not a new idea, but it's a good one that has been in place for a long time in the consulting and pharmaceutical manufacturing arenas among others. Many agencies and clients are stuck in the familiar worlds of commission-based or hours/labor-based compensation. At their worst, these approaches encourage reach-oriented (i.e. tonnage) marketing programs, support running up the clock to justify billable hours and perhaps worst, crush innovation and performance.

The barriers and risks to adopting this approach are not insignificant and include:

• Agency and client comfort/momentum in doing things the way they've always been done.
• Having enough influence on an overall program so that the value you envision and agree upon with a client can actually be created.
• Clearly defining success and therefore value (raise your hand if you've been part of a view-through debate)
• Determining pricing so that nobody loses their shirt and the agency doesn't miss out on the upside.
  

There are various individuals and groups that are promoting this approach. Ignition Consulting Group and The Verasage Institue spring to the top of searches on the topic. Ignition even has a presentation on the topic posted on slideshare.net that is quite informative: Burying the Billable Hour.

So, what does this have to do with Project Management? In a study that Ignition and VeraSage conducted on behalf of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Association of National Advertiser's (ANA), the 2, top-rated agency value-drivers according to marketers were:

1. Working in a collaborative way with the client by creating an environment of mutual respect.
2. Ensuring that agency functions are integrated and agency divisions collaborate on behalf of the client

Along with the fact that Project Managers are often at the heart of conversations around pricing, these two tidbits should help give you voice on important discussions about evolving your agency's relationship with its clients. On the business development front, RFP's almost always allow responses for alternative means of compensation beyond the cost+ calculations they require. Putting a value-based option in front of a prospect isn't likely to get taken up at the outset, but at least it will show that your agency has some life.

Speak up. Watch out for the tar pits!