Love your agency - an appreciation of the past

It’s strange how time can change perceptions of things. Especially when it comes to work - and feeling negative about your place of employment.

However, sometimes we can be a little bit too quick to judge.

You work somewhere for a while, the honeymoon period ends & suddenly the company you started off thinking was ace, turns into an environment you feel you can’t work in. Everything bothers you - the management, the systems, the coffee, the squeaky doors and the oh-too-small toilet entrance.

But then you move on. And you realise, actually, you had it pretty good. I guess it comes with experience, but, since moving on, I have discovered a huge newfound respect for my first digital employers. So guys - I salute you! Not only did they give me my break, and teach me most of what I now know, but they also uphold most of the standards I now hold to be very important to developing successful websites and online solutions.

The problem is one of ‘polish’. Many companies appear fantastic, glimmery and organised, but once the polish rubs away a little, we have a very dirty underbelly that makes finding work/life balance a tricky one indeed.

A good agency needs:

• solid and clear separation of roles & responsibilities - front-end developers and back-end, project and account managers, business development and account management, etc
• great and simple systems of working - timesheet systems, job bagging, and reconciliation tools that work, and are built to the standards expected by the clients we serve. So much time is wasted just trying to figure out how much money has been made/lost. The technology is there - use it!
• templates & file structure - a clear and well defined process for saving files, setting up job folders, creating quotations, project plans, etc etc…. need to be agreed by all, used by all and read by all! There is nothing worse for a busy and fast digital agency than random file structures and individuals doing there own thing. Nightmare.

It soon becomes clear that the agencies without the systems and processes in place are the ones whos standards suffer the most. HTML gets sloppy, accessibility drops out a little and QA gets rushed. In such a fast-moving and ever-developing industry, the longevity will go to the agencies who are not only creative, personable, technical and in the right location, but to those that can manage themselves and know, within an instant, how much money they made or lost today - and where to find that bloody brief.