Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I was recently asked by a close client contact, "How does Capstrat determine which Web projects to do and which not to do?"  She wondered why we pursued some with vigor and turned down or passed on so many other projects.

I told her it was one part reputation, two parts politics, one part economics and a thousand parts experience.

As far as reputation is concerned, we want to do work that matters. We want to feel great about making HTML products that create value for people and help communities. We want the world to know that we want this. We also want to do work that is exciting and cool--work that makes other potential clients notice us.

In terms of politics, we are a relatively big (88 FTE's) independent firm in the southeast and have alot of big clients. Because we are an integrated firm, it follows if we are doing crisis or reputation management, we are also likely doing interactive and advertising or marketing of some sort. To me it’s all storytelling. Another perspective sees it more about relationships than politics. This is an important piece. We like to work with people who understand projects worth doing are worth sharing risk. To that end, we work with people that trust we can measure and mitigate project risk. It generally takes a good relationship dynamic to make a good project succeed. Client is just as important as agency. Clients tolerant of candid discussions about doing what it takes to succeed are clients we value.

Last, it is about economics. We want to do work that wont break us financially. Believe me, there are many projects on which we take a bath because it is a relationship investment or a cause we are willing to support. But mostly, we do work for clients that understand and value the price of a deliberate and considerate strategy.

So, here is one approach we take on the Web team to help us figure out how to spend our resources:

Client Challenge or Problem

What is it?

What’s causing it?

Are there unstated problems hiding behind their stated problems?

What business benefits will they gain by solving these problems?

Is this problem worth solving?

How does this project relate to the company’s current top priorities?

Our Solution

What form ought it take? (components, timeframe, $, etc)

Why do we feel this is the best solution for the client?

What other options (competitors) are they considering?

What additional information do we need to do an estimate / proposal?

Urgency

When do they need the solution live?

What is driving the date?

Is the client team on the same page regarding vision, scope, urgency and ownership?

Access

Who are the decision makers? Do we have access? Will they trust our ideas?

Who owns the vision for this project? Who is the person driving this day-to-day?

What is the decision process?

What are the decision criteria?

Expectations

What do they think it will cost to solve their problem?

How long do they think it will take?

What resource commitments are they willing to make?

Have these expectations been set internally?

Are the client’s expectations in line with ours?

If not, what’s our plan to calibrate expectations?

Money

Is this a funded project? If yes, how much?

Whose budget will this come out of?

If not, how do projects get funded? How can we help?

Are there unanticipated potential revenue streams we can help tap?

Are there creative budget sharing ideas to follow?

A recent survey commissioned by Unisys and conducted by IDG Research suggests that outsourcing–the darling business crutch of the past decade–may be maturing. At least in terms of the value proposition. While we all theoretically agree outsourcing reduces costs by creating organizational effectiveness, the study suggests other issues outweigh the benefit. The real surprise is that cost is not as important any more.

Although still valued by the group of 458 global senior managers surveyed, cost moved down in importance. Instead, corporations are starting to look at the entire value proposition as opposed to just straight-line cost savings. The difference is fairly dramatic. Respondents ranked the benefit of "increased effectiveness" 13 percent higher in 2007 than in 2006. Both "improved quality of service" and "overall business value" ranked 20 percent higher in level of importance over last year. Cost savings dropped 4 percent in level of importance from 2006.

Could it be the inconvenience of outsourcing has made us tired? A friend who manages offshore software developers believes so. He says external developers do not have proper context. This often results in work that misses the mark just enough to require significant rework. Unfortunately, this can mean missed deadlines and blown budgets. Hardly a cost savings.

Maybe we’re learning to outsource more effectively by allowing the external partner to be a counselor as opposed to simply doing the same function that once took place inside. Proctor and Gamble has documented innovation well by using the Not Invented Here model. They have learned to cherry pick the best resources to solve their toughest problems. Could be their financial model. They reward their outsource partners with a portion of the profit. That’ll get you vested quickly.

Finally, could it be that corporations are looking beyond the immediate? Wouldn’t that be impressive?

Whatever the reason, it’s clear companies that rely on partners like Capstrat are learning how to get real value out of the relationship. The deal is signed early, contracts control cost. The only thing left to differentiate one supplier from the next is the value they bring. Differentiation…what a concept. I couldn’t be happier.

Part of making a strategic interactive firm successful is figuring out what went well, what didn't go well and most importantly how to capitalize on successes and learn from mistakes. Here is a compilation of project post mortem ideas Capstrat Interactive is exploring. We welcome feedback. 

1. Opportunities we may not be thinking of / where the hidden gems may be:

• In the ambiguous space between what went well and what went wrong.  What was mediocre and why?

• What agitated people (internal staff or the client)?  Individuals’ attitudes about one aspect of the project will impact how they feel about every aspect of the project.

• Consider a post-post-mortum meeting with someone not involved on the project in in other areas of our business to discuss possible offline tactics that the client may benefit from.

• Connect the client’s project to our other clients.  While everyone is in the room, take a moment to think about things we did that could benefit our other clients. Make a list of clients to send relevant project case study to (or ask other staff to send the site ideas to their contacts.) This needs to benefit our clients first and foremost. We should imagine that our clients want to see what other comapnies are doing online. There are likely parallel ideas. 

2. What we are looking for with a post mortem:

• Obviously what was done well, and what needs improvement, as is currently done.  

• We need to look way back to the beginning to see what opportunities we missed now that we see it in the final form.

• What internal or external feedback needs to be considered? Capture it.

• Where we may have missed a tactic or idea on the original interactive blueprint as more ideas surface from other experiences we have. 

• Seeing this in the final form, what does the next step look like on a project of this nature? How can we fold learned items into subsequent projects.

• Places where our process may have broken down for any reason; where didn’t we collaborate/talk when we or the client should have. What obstacles were in our way, how did we deal with them? How did they affect the client?

3. What outcomes we want to take to the client:

• In the past we have given our clients a top 10 reasons their site is awesome. This is great for them to feel good about how strategic their site  is and we should be sure to do this consistently. We should also be honest and candid. Every project has missed opportuities for reasons of budget, timeline, shared team politics, etc. Our goal with the post mortem should always be to surface the best ideas regardless of constraints and help steward the best outcome. 

• We should add a top 10 list of things to remember going forward.  These would be more practical, and have the client thinking about what we ought to monitor collaboratively on their site and how to expand the capabilities, visibility, etc of their site.

• What does our client need to know about what we have created? Think of this like a users guide. The challenge is that it is hard to know what our client's don't know. This needs to be an ongoing effort to benefit every client retro-actively and going forward. We should post this to our client extranet to benefit each client.

4. How we should arrive at outcomes:

• Make sure every post mortem meeting has a few copies of the original blueprint (Web strategy) floating around the room. We will source it repeatedly. 

• We should have everyone in the post mortem write first, before anyone begins talking (maybe 15 minutes).  This could be in response to key questions.  This could capture a lot more information than if everyone talked for that 20 minutes.

• Use sock puppets to act out some of the scenarios — it works for psychologists.

• Have someone look back through the emails before the meeting. Distill highlights to give context (or countour) to the relationship and what pressures or events had an impact on our project.

• Assume that the client/3rd party did not make any mistakes.  If we accept responsibility for everything then we have the ability to change it next time...but are powerless if we blame outside forces.  (e.g. The hosting company had problem the day before the site was supposed to go live...not the client's fault. It is our fault that we waited until the day before to re-check the hosting picture.)

5. Time and Money:

• Look at the tasks that were entered into our time management software and the hours assigned for each task and actual hours spent.  See if any of these tasks can be subdivided into 10 hour tasks intead of lump 30-60 hour tasks that are much more difficult to track. Disaggregate tasks and focus on being efficient stewards of our client's budgets.

• Talk about specifics with respect to how we can cut down on the time certain tasks take. Push to do more quality with less resources. Limit meeting time without compromising collaboration. 

• Start a list of what tasks, if any, went over budget or time, by how much and why. Be open with the client about real vs. budgeted allocations.

6. Additional thoughts:

• Post-mortems are great opportunities to create and start using a services playbook. Start with the givens (lessons learned, technical knowledge about strategic, design, usability, development, monitoring issues, etc.).

• Take the things that naturally arise in conversation and put them into the playbook format that is client-specific.

• Obviously a wiki is ideal to capture this info after the meeting. Teams interested in continuous improvement should have an operational wiki which should be an integral part of any process. Give unfettered access to this wiki to our client contacts.
  

• Begin drafting the recommendations for each client's 6 month or 1 year check up. Help them learn from each of our engagements.
  

When building larger Web projects we, here at Capstrat Interactive rely on a fairly rigorous Web strategy, design and development process. I feel good about it. Because we are an integrated strategic communications firm/agency/company, we have a lot of communications professionals representing a lot of different functional groups. WOM (word-of-mouth), social media, motion/dynamic media, PR, etc. Our process calls from each of these areas to make sure we are exploiting all possible angles for our clients.

Big deal, huh? Well I was trading emails with Ryan Freitas at Adaptive Path a few weeks back and we were differing on the value of a process in the creation of user-centered design projects. He makes a convincing argument that process gets in the way and impedes the natural flow of projects for the Web. My quandary was that I both agreed with him and disagreed with him to some extent. Process can certainly kill the creative element if you let it. I have seen it happen in the past. But I also believe that it helps larger teams keep a thousand working parts in order. We could not survive, as well, without it.

I think it has more to do with the nature and makeup of your team than the project itself. Adaptive Path is recognized as a leader in this field and I certainly have a healthy respect for their approach and their project have a tendancy to succeed from what I can tell.

Capstrat Interactive's process is said to be a big one as it attempts to be more one-size-fits all and as comprehensive as it can be. In the creation of our Interactive process, we set out to create one process for all Web-based projects.

And while I find Adaptive Path's purposeful lack of a process both Zen and freeing, I believe the projects we work on and the nature of our team would be more lost than free.

Here is Capstrat's Interactive Process.