How Proper Workflow Management Can Help Your Agency Grow

Are you in charge of a small creative agency experiencing growth? Your team may consist of two, three, five or even ten individuals and clients keep hiring you for projects (perhaps, more projects than you can handle). Everything seems to indicate that your agency will grow. There are a number of things you should do to ensure that your agency will continue growing.

Creativity, we know, is important. Attention to time, though, is just as important as creativity. Because your agency is experiencing growth, you need to dedicate extra attention to what is happening in your agency. Attention to the required components of an agency workflow is essential.

According to Second Wind’s recent workshop focused on running creative agencies properly and profitably, your agency needs to establish a solid traffic system. A traffic system will promote efficiency and profitability in your agency. Your team will be on schedule, your products will reflect the budget determined by your client, and by the end of the day both your team and clients will be happy.

Defining a concise, solid traffic system will enable you to effectively manage your agency workflow. In defining a traffic system, you will be able to do a number of things required for the success and growth of your agency: Producing accurate estimates and creative briefs, creating jobs, recording the time that your staff members spend on each activity, and much more.

Second Wind defines the adoption of a digital traffic management system, such as Function Point, as a good approach to properly build the traffic system of your agency. In using a digital traffic management system, you can accurately and effectively record the time spent in each project, produce documentation that is relevant to the management of the agency, communicate with your team, partners, clients and vendors through pinned notes, and ensure good management. In adopting a digital traffic management system, you will have all the required tools to guarantee that your agency will meet your client’s expectations, deadline, and budget.

To ensure good workflow management, Second Wind emphasizes the importance of establishing amicable relationships with freelance staff. If your agency is at risk of not meeting a deadline, be prepared to delegate some of the tasks of your core staff to freelancers. They will allow you to meet your deadline and to ensure your client’s satisfaction with the final product.

It is also very important for your company to build relationships with trustworthy vendors. Remember, often times you will rely on your vendors to deliver the final product on time and on budget to the client. So, ensure that the vendors you work with understand their deliverables and when they are due.

Finally, if you are considering implementing a traffic management system, do not underestimate the importance of the role of a traffic manager in your agency, as discussed in my previous post.