Overview
The Modern Brand Co. is a full-service branding and marketing agency based in Birmingham, Alabama. They specialize in brand development, graphic design, website design, and digital advertising. As a small, nine-person agency, they routinely manage 10-15 active projects at any given time. Their challenge is that no two projects look alike.
For one client they may be creating a complete advertising campaign with TV spots, radio production, print design, and online/digital advertising while another client may just need a logo design or a strategic marketing plan.
To manage this constant flow of variable projects, Modern Brand used traditional waterfall methodology for six years (both owners of the agency are PMP certified). But, one thing that Modern Brand noticed across all of their projects was a need for shorter feedback loops. In their traditional waterfall approach, it was not uncommon for a project to run for 6-8 weeks before being presented to a client.
While this is a pretty standard approach for advertising agencies, this method was creating a lot of problems for Modern Brand. It was not uncommon to get to a final client presentation and have the client reject the idea or the concept and then have to scrap weeks of design work. They knew that there had to be a better way to involve clients earlier in the process.
That’s why The Modern Brand partnered with The Braintrust Consulting Group and became Agile.
CHALLENGE
Through the Braintrust Agile Assessment process, The Modern brand found several opportunities for improvement.
- The traditional advertising agency approach for product delivery wasn’t working. They would start a new project, create the concept, write the content, design the piece or pieces, and then finally present the finished product to the client, only to have it potentially rejected.
- When they tried to implement Scrum on their own, they tried to unsuccessfully fit every project into a Scrum process.
- Agile training and knowledge was inconsistent among agency employees.