Transformation & Change108

Transforming an Advertising Agency

Bringing an Agile Mindset beyond Engineering

David Grabel

February 12, 2017

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Conference Video

Watch the video here: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/agile-advertising-agency

Description

Vistaprint transformed its software development teams to Agile, reducing release cycles from 18 months to 3 weeks. But Marketing had to move faster to match this pace. The bottlenecks seemed to be in the in-house advertising agency. Could Agile work for an advertising agency? Yes it could!

With a combination of in-depth training, embedded coaching, big visible boards, and a focus on the agile mindset, we reduced the lead time for the North American email team from eight weeks to nine days. The cycle time dropped from 15 days to four. Late night and weekend work disappeared. The on-time delivery rate soared and quality did not suffer. This approach is now being used to spread the Agile mindset (and best practices) to our managers, executives and European operations. Showing that Agile works well outside of software is providing the traction for an enterprise-wide transformation.

About David Grabel

Photo of David Grabel

Enterprise Agile Coach @ Vistaprint

David Grabel is currently an Enterprise Agile Coach at Vistaprint, a Cimpress company. He is currently bringing Agile to marketing and the executive team at Vistaprint. David has introduced Scrum, Kanban, XP, and SAFe to organizations ranging from single team startups to organizations with over 500 teams. Previous clients include PayPal, Bose, and Trizetto. He is certified as CSM, CSP & SPC and is studying at the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.

David is the treasurer of Agile New England and is a former president of the chapter. Previously, he was Vice President of Engineering at Monetrics, a startup that was acquired by JM Family Enterprises. Other previous senior management positions include Vice President of Product Technology at Thomson Gale and Vice President of Development at Politzer & Haney.

Presentation Slides

Summary Transcript

Good evening, David. Good morning. Thank you very much, Charlie. I’m going to tell you about the specific transformation we applied at Vistaprint to our internal advertising agency.

The common wisdom had been that Agile couldn't work outside of IT—maybe for software, but not for creative work. People believed they couldn’t experiment, and particularly, that an internal advertising agency couldn't be Agile because internal clients expected polished, professional work.

I want to share two stories: first, about the rousing success we had applying Agile outside of IT, and second, how this success unlocked enterprise Agile adoption across the entire Vistaprint business unit.

About Vistaprint

You probably know us as the free business card company. But we’ve gone beyond free business cards—we provide a complete range of mass-customized products to 17 million customers, helping micro-businesses (companies with 10 employees or less) market themselves and succeed. Our new mission is to help them live their dreams.

We’ve also undergone a transformation in technology, moving from Waterfall—where projects took three years—to Scrum and Kanban, where projects now take two to three weeks. Some teams are even doing continuous delivery.

The Agency’s Challenge

If you worked in our agency, you might be a designer, photographer, web designer, graphic designer, copywriter, or video producer. If you were a project manager in one of the departments we served, and you needed creative work for your three-week project, but the agency had 12-week lead times, it was a nightmare.

We mapped our value stream for a pilot with our North American email marketing team. This team, which some customers might think was "spamming" them, was actually trying to help businesses improve through creative marketing. Before we started, the process efficiency was only about 3%—it was taking up to six weeks to complete 24 hours of labor.

Addressing the Problem

I spoke to the Vice President of the agency, who was tired of being blamed for delays. Then I spoke to the VP of Channel Marketing, the agency’s internal client, who was tired of being blamed for using too many creative resources. They agreed to let us run a pilot, with a key agreement in place: they gave their teams permission to fail.

Before this, failure was not an option. Failure meant the client wasn't satisfied with the work. This was a critical shift.

How the Team Saw the Process

The team described their work before Agile as chaotic. They faced:

  • Frequent feedback loops with multiple approval levels
  • Unclear decision rights between creative and business teams
  • Long lead times for creative work

To address this, they implemented several key Agile practices:

  • Daily stand-ups
  • An "idea pipeline" to allow early-stage campaign requests without excessive details upfront
  • Regular retrospectives

Decision Effectiveness Experiment

The team hypothesized that decision-making was happening at too high a level. They feared that pushing decisions down to teams would hurt business results. They ran the experiment, and the results showed no significant change in business outcomes—KPIs remained within ±1%—but cycle times improved dramatically.

Impressive Results

At the start of January, the average lead time was 40 days. By the end, it was down to 7 days—an 83% improvement. Cycle times dropped from 15 days to 4 days, a 73% reduction. Delivery metrics improved: previously, everything was late by up to two weeks. After Agile, 43% of work was early, 36% was on time, and only 21% was late—usually by just one day.

Keys to Success

Here’s what made the transformation work:

  • Encouraging open, face-to-face communication
  • Destroying silos—bringing marketing, design, and production together
  • Introducing Lean and Kanban practices
  • Using "mob design"—a collaborative approach where designers, copywriters, and marketers worked together in real-time

Scaling Agile Across the Enterprise

Having proven that Agile worked outside of IT, we expanded Agile globally—connecting our North American and European marketing teams. Executives, impressed by the results, became interested in Agile at an enterprise level.

Learning from Other Companies

To deepen their understanding, executives visited companies like Menlo Innovations, GE Healthcare, Ericsson, and Nationwide Insurance. After visiting Menlo, they tried an experiment: working together in an open space. The experiment failed—revealing they weren’t in the building enough to function as a true executive team.

What they learned was that they needed to spend more time together. Now, every Wednesday morning, the entire executive team—including members in Europe—meets via video conferencing.

Enterprise-Wide Changes

Executives also started pairing on strategic initiatives and making their work visible with Kanban boards. They engaged with Agile Transformation expert Sally Elatta. After one day of training, our CEO said, "Now I finally understand what a full business agility transformation looks like."

Managing Organizational Work in Progress

Another key initiative was reducing organizational WIP (work in progress). An "Enterprise Visibility Room" was created to track initiatives. Initially, the executives believed 20% of work was focused on "keeping the lights on," but the reality was closer to 55-60%.

In the first planning session, they identified 80 initiatives—far too many. By the second session, they reduced this to 20 initiatives, prioritizing only 10-15 at a time. Their new directive: stop starting, start finishing.

Expanding Agile at All Levels

This transformation became an "All In on Agile" initiative, but with an opt-in approach—teams weren’t forced into it. We educated executives, middle management, and teams at different levels to ensure a smooth transition.

Final Thoughts

Our Agile transformation has been a tremendous success. We are just beginning our enterprise journey, and there’s much more to do, but we’ve learned valuable lessons along the way.

Some of the key takeaways:

  • Agile works beyond IT—it works in creative teams too.
  • Executive support and experimentation are crucial.
  • Reducing work in progress leads to better outcomes.
  • Encouraging collaboration and visibility drives change.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

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