Designers in the House: Part 3

Processes and technology

In my previous articles I discussed how to decide if?setting up an in-house agency or studio?is the right move for your organisation and?considerations for hiring the right people.

The next question is, what other things should you consider to enable your new in-house agency to function effectively?

The Process

The way creative people come up with ideas and concepts can look pretty messy to the outside observer. It usually involves a lot of false starts, wandering down some blind alleys and, not-infrequently, complete re-thinks. In other words, there is no clear-cut formula to coming up with a creative idea.?

As a result, creative agencies have developed processes?around?the creation of campaigns that are actually very structured and disciplined. In order for their imagination to be free to solve problems in interesting ways that grab attention, creative people need a very supportive framework to work within.?

Regardless of whether your creative teams are developing campaign ideas and concepts from scratch, or your design execution teams are adapting global campaigns, the process should look something like this:

1. The Brief: For any new task or assignment, this is the most critical part of the process. If all the requirements and expectations are not clearly set out (in writing) at the beginning of the project there is almost certainly going to be misunderstanding, confusion and frustration. The Brief itself doesn’t have to be lengthy – in fact it should actually be, as the name implies, as brief and succinct as possible. In essence the Brief addresses 5 key questions: (i) What are we selling? (ii) Who are we talking to? (iii) Why should they believe us? (proof points) (iv) How do we want them to respond? and (v) Practical considerations (Budget, timelines, mandatories if not already clear etc)
2. The Review?process for brand new projects usually takes up three stages: The first draft where initial ideas are presented – don’t expect perfection here; typically the ideas will be quite raw and the aim here is to arrive at a mutual understanding between the creative team and their immediate management as to the correct direction. The second draft is where comments from the first draft are taken into account and the project itself can be shared with the business unit that commissioned the project. The third (and hopefully final) draft will be virtually the finished thing – ready for senior management approval if required. Of course, this is a rather simplified version of the review process and there will always be exceptions – sometimes the work will take many rounds to get ‘right’ and sometimes (alas rarely) the work sails right through with everything approved at the first draft.
3. Approval: Next to the Brief, the Approval stage is the most critical quality control part of the creative production process. There should be a literal sign off on the final product involving every member of the team that worked on it, up to and including the manager in charge and the business unit that commissioned the job. The purpose here is not to fault-find or catch people out. Mistakes and omissions will happen, especially if there are time constraints or the team is juggling multiple assignments at the same time. By requiring each member of the team to check and sign off the completed project, you will minimise the possibility of errors.

What has been described above is just a summary, and depending on your team and the kind of work they will be doing, there will almost certainly be variations to this. This is where you should work with your creative director, studio manager or senior designer (depending on the size of your team) to establish what will work best for your goals.

Time management

In survey after survey of in-house agencies, the most common issue to arise is that the in-house agency’s time is not valued within their organisation.?

A large part of this come down to the simple fact that very few in-house agencies charge for their time as it would be viewed as defeating the whole purpose of having an in-house team on salary. However, when a service is considered ‘free’, it very soon holds little or no value to the people using it. This often leads to undisciplined use of the in-house agency’s time, up to and including using their work as a kind of sounding board for business units to check out different ideas with no commitment to actually using any of the work.?

Over and above the obvious human cost of such activity, it just doesn’t make any kind of business sense. You’ve spent considerable time, resources and money setting up your in-house agency, so the last thing you want is for it to be taken for granted.

It is therefore essential to track how the in-house agency’s time is utilised. Even if there is no charge-back or cost to the business unit, you need to have a clear overview of how much time your team spends on each project. This way you will not only be able to see which business units are working effectively with your team and which are not, and you’ll also have a clear record of your team’s utilisation at a group and individual level. This will be invaluable for determining the success of the team and the individuals in it, and planning ahead for expansion or restructuring.

The simplest and most obvious way to do this is via a time sheet. (And I’ve now earned the eternal enmity of creative people who want to move in-house to?get away?from time sheets...) I don’t particularly like filling in time sheets (I’m pretty sure nobody does) but they don’t have to be complicated or burdensome to complete.?

A simple spread sheet on a shared drive should be enough to get you started. This spread sheet would list in columns the job (plus job number for tracking); business unit commissioning the job; creative team member assigned; round one; round two (revision); round three (revision - if you end up having more than 3 rounds of revisions, then you need to find out why); and colour codes for changes due to changes of brief, changes due to creative team errors, changes due to senior management changing their mind etc.

There are of course various commercial time tracking apps and software available that can provide a slicker-looking interface and broader usability. And these should be considered in consultation with the most senior member(s) of your team.?

The most critical thing is to ensure that the in-house agency team members fill in the timesheet regularly – ideally at the end of each day. Failing that, at the end of the week. The longer they take to update the time sheet, the less accurate – and useful – it will be. It will be up to your creative director, studio manager or senior designer to police this.

The Technology

Let me start this part with a confession. I am about as far from being a tech guru as it is possible to get. So please just view this section as a high-level overview of the kind of tools and technology your in-house agency will need. You should work closely with both your IT department and your creative director, studio manager or senior designer to establish precisely what you will need. Here are a few starting points for your consideration.

Mac or Windows??The industry standard in the creative agency and design world is Mac OS. This will be the automatic preference of any creative team member you hire. In many cases, especially with art directors and designers, not being allowed to use a Mac will be a deal breaker. Assuming your organisation uses Windows-based devices, you will need to discuss this with your IT department to see if there is flexibility to integrate Mac OS in such a way as to allow easy networking and printing. If this is not possible, then you will need to state clearly in your job descriptions for creative hires that they will be expected to work in a Windows-based environment. For writers, this should not be so much of an issue. For art directors and designers, the learning curve will be steeper. (They’ll have to re-learn all their keyboard shortcuts and get used to an interface that is not quite as instinctual to use as Mac OS.) You will need to allow for this in the first few weeks of your in-house agency’s operations.?

Computer specifications:?There’s pretty much one certainty for any device you are considering for a designer or art director: you can never have too much RAM or processing power. This especially applies if they will be handling huge files for video editing or outdoor media. In this area I would defer to the experts and advise you to consult with your IT department. A standard laptop should easily suffice for the writers in your team.

Colour accuracy:?Another issue to consider is colour accuracy. Apple monitors have more accurately colour-calibrated screens which is very important if your team will be doing a lot of print-based work – brochures, event panels, out-of-home posters etc. In cases like this, having at least one Mac-based monitor that is regularly calibrated for colour accuracy will be important. If your work is predominantly digital-based, then, since colours will vary slightly from monitor to monitor and device to device, accuracy is not so much of a factor.

Software:?For designers, art directors, web designers and video editors, this is an easy one:?Adobe Creative Cloud.?This is a collection of over 20 desktop and mobile apps and services for photography, design, video, web, UX and more. For your writers, MS Word will be the software they use most.

Learning Microsoft software:?If the people you hire are from a classic agency or design studio background, then their knowledge of and ability with the standard Microsoft tools like Word and PowerPoint will be pretty basic. (Let’s not even talk about Excel...) If it’s your intention for the team to also help other business units with sales presentations and training materials that utilise Word and PowerPoint, then you will have to allow time for them to get up to speed. It would be a good idea to check with your L&D team if they have any courses or training modules that would help your team in this area.

With that, I’ve come to the end of my 3-part series on the whys and hows of setting up an in-house agency. Obviously I’ve really only skimmed lightly over the surface of what is required, but hopefully I have provided you with a good starting point.

In summary you will need to:

1. Look at the work you will want your in-house agency to do and how the agency will fit into your organisation.
2. Based on the anticipated work, hire people with the right experience, skill sets and, above all, mindsets.?
3. Equip them properly with the right processes and tools to do their job.

Setting up an in-house agency won’t necessarily be all smooth sailing, but with careful planning, it should lead to considerable cost-savings and efficiencies.

If you have any further questions or would like to hear more insights in this area, please do reach out to me.