Iterating for innovation and the Lean Agency: my talk at the #firestarters Google UK event
Not so long ago, Neil Perkin invited me to speak at the event he was arranging to take place at Google UK HQ. Neil was keen to explore what Agile Planning means and the event, named FireStarters, brought together a 100 or so planners to share in the discussion. What followed was an excellent evening that included Mark Earls giving us What She is Having and many breakout sessions on various themes over beers. Neil has a great write-up on his blog.
This was a great chance to expand on the Lean Startup based approach we are using at Made By Many and introduced at Planningness in NY back last September. Since then we have learn't alot and the presentation I gave (embedded after the jump) introduces what I think can become some best practice for developing "Lean Agencies", agencies built from the ground-up to search for innovation.
I will talk in more detail about the Lean Agency in a future blog post but for now here are a few points I was trying to make in a 45 min talk (which, delivered at rapid pace, ended up around the 30 minute mark). The key points were:
- The industry has talked a lot about designing "communication products", "branded utilities and "advertising as a service" for years but there are still so few good agency examples (still referencing Nike+ anyone?). Is it time to come to terms with the fact that the existing agency process and setup just can't do this successfully?
- What can we learn for start-ups and the lean start-up movement that shows us a potential blueprint for producing this kind of work?
- There is no one-to-one mapping from lean startup to the agency world, but if we learn to be 'lean agencies' we can deliver this kind of innovation for clients.
- The characteristics of the lean agency will be: iterative; integrated; metrics and evidence driven; strive to minimize waste.
- I only talked really about the first point, iteration. There is so much talk about how people need to be iterative but no advice on how to do it successfully.
- The process most people use comes from the general post-war process of the production line, designed to specialize individuals and tasks and drive down the cost of producing commodity goods. This is the process most advertising creation follows.
- The traditional creative approach is like betting on a hole-in-one based on the experience of a team of experts.
- Traditional website/software development used this process until they discovered Agile. The primary takeaway we learn from Agile Software Development = "RESPOND TO CHANGE"
- We use an iterative process of Make -> Test -> Learn. I presented a very fast case study of how we are doing this for Skype.
- We learned you need to rinse and repeat to be agile. To iterate, not just increment, you must evolve the product.
- Iteration is only useful when done at speed. That's because the more speed, the greater the number of feedback points you will get.
- Feedback is important. This is what makes it iterative: that you change based on feedback, and at many points throughout the process. We learn always through feedback, metrics and evidencing.
- We must balance iteration and optimisation with intuitive leaps. Iteration can make the best of an idea and kill the ones that won't work but it won't tell you if a better idea exists.
- Finally, we are still learning how to improve this. As with everything iterative it remains an unfinished piece.
There will be more on this blog on the subject of the lean agency so come back often and we would love to hear any and all comments on this. Feedback is how we learn.
6 comments
Great post, presentation and guidance here Stuart. My only comment to the “Lean Agency” approach is that this is only achievable by those companies who are defined by it from the very beginning, such as MxM. Not by a company whose looking to retrofit this into an older or more predicable model. Most marketing practices are still trying to figure our how to achieve the “integrated model”. If anything, most people reading this post will at the very least take away the idea that its ok to fail, or not stopping at the first idea, but by approaching things from a more solutions and opportunistic approach. By challenging, learning, refining and of course repeating. Thanks for sharing.
businesses and brands want to be known as dynamic. The lean agency makes use of readily available tools and technologies to allow for dynamism to unfold and slims down on all means and methods slowing down the agency’s and their clientele’s response time. Any procedure aims to shape people, while all people just want to grow and enjoy their self-actualization.
The more things change, the more we have to change with them. That is why an iterative model is important for agencies. We need to adapt our current way of working, since the old model does not work with the changing times.
@clweinfeld
‘betting on a hole-in-one’
That’s another one of your nuggets I’m having.
thanks E
@mikescheiner I absolutely agree and I guess i mentioned it more in the talk than here but the Lean Agency approach not only can’t be achieved by most agencies but shouldn’t. Because it is not an optimal process for doing known solutions (ie 30sec spots) at the lowest risk and best price. The old model can be improved (by even using some of these approaches) but needs to be separated from the search for new solutions as these things are mutually incompatible.
This is a great collection of thoughts and learnings, and I agree completely with your approach. Thanks, especially for sharing your learnings. Very useful indeed.
It is also good to note in the comments the realisation that this approach needs to be designed in from the the beginning, into campaigns, client relationships and strategy, and to the agency itself of course.
Companies get trapped by their business models and the best way to have an enterprise free from these constraints is to start a new venture, a spin-off, skunkworks, whatever.