Successful small agencies produce excellent creative work. But they know that's only part of the equation. They've also perfected the way they work with clients.
Your process might need an overhaul if...
What Is Your Process Costing You?
You frequently find yourself digging through emails and folders
You're constantly reminding or responding to surprise requests
Scopes creep and feel difficult to rein back in
Project timelines always seem to slip or drag
Details slip through the cracks... or you worry that they will
Clients often request re-work and extra rounds of edits
Agile Admin: So Creatives Can Be Creative
As a small agency owner, you play a lot of roles. Creator — Pipeline-Feeder — Invoice-Sender — General Manager — People Pleaser — Fire-Putter-Outer — just to name a few. You're better at some than others, but the fact is, you dove headfirst into this challenging, amazing, demanding, exhausting business because one of those roles is a perfect fit.
The rest? They're just part of doing business. But they're critically important. Agile Admin makes the business stuff feel easy. So you can focus on the work you love - knowing that your clients are happy and projects are running smoothly.
How Does Agile Admin Work?
We've borrowed principles from Agile Development to design a process purpose-built to help creative projects be more productive, predictable and - let's face it - pleasant.
Keep scope front
and center
Let scope be your North Star, shaping everything from project timelines to payment schedules. Promise and then deliver.
Communicate clearly and proactively
Bring your client into the process. Set up a system that keeps them informed every step of the way - not just when you need feedback or approvals.
Work in phases
Take a step-by-step approach and work iteratively to ensure that you're staying on target. Impress your clients, don't surprise them.
Plan for partnership
You may start with a project, but over time, your client will begin to see you as a partner. Awesome. But stick to your process to deliver the best outcomes.
Let's Get Agile
Get Personalized Support
We're a rare breed of consultant - when you work with us, we're not out to sell you the next job. In fact, we're actively working to make ourselves obsolete.
We'll work with you in short sprints to audit existing workflows, identify bottlenecks, and help you implement our Agile Admin framework.
The end result: projects that run more smoothly; clients that sing your praises; and a whole lot less stress for you.
Join Our Beta Program
We're currently building a digital platform designed to make Agile Admin even easier to implement.
Say goodbye to siloed and static project information; say hello to a dynamic timeline-based approach to managing files, scope changes, approvals, and more.
Join our early user cohort to get first access, help shape the final product, and enjoy discounted use of the Ditto platform.
Happy Creatives. Happy Clients.
“Ditto makes it easy for me to stay accountable with my clients and vice versa. It helps me stay organized, and I always know when I’ll get paid.”
Marissa L.,
UX/UI Designer
"In a growing business with contractors coming and going, Ditto is my project + contractor ‘memory’."
Dustin Smith, President, Hum
"Ditto ensures that there are never questions about where a project stands, how much it’s going to cost, or when I’ll see an invoice."
Alexander E., CEO Prepdeck
We're Optimistic Optimizers
Hi! We're Liz and Claire. We're not certified PMPs or project managers. We're small agency owners who know what it's like to keep a million balls in the air, and have experienced that feeling of dread when a project starts to go sideways.
In 2018, we teamed up on a project and cut a few admin-related corners to meet a tight client deadline. We were working for a friend of a friend, so we figured it was totally fine. We never had a contract. We didn't require a deposit. Yeah, you can probably see where this is going... our rookie mistake cost us $6k in project fees.
This experience was our wake-up call: we'd been so focused on getting to the fun part of the work that we'd neglected the business stuff. So, we started to get as serious about process as we were about the creative work. But the often recommended "airtight contracts" with aggressive legalese plus complicated Gantt charts detailing unrealistic timelines didn't really feel like the answer... I mean, how do you build a flexible, functional client relationship that way? And who wants to spend more time documenting the project than actually doing the work?
In the end, we found a method that worked... and it was pretty simple.
We borrowed principles from Agile software development to create a streamlined and easily replicable framework for managing creative projects - we call it Agile Admin. It's a process that's both proactive and flexible. It's designed to keep scope front and center, to gather better, more helpful feedback from clients, to keep payments on track, and to keep clients in the loop, every step of the way.
Now, we help others work this way, too.
No Friction. Just Flow.
Ever had a project where everything just felt easy? One where the project stayed on time, in budget, and in scope? One where the client always gave the right amount of feedback - and sang your praises when the work was complete?
We believe that process makes perfect... and that process is difficult to standardize in creative projects. We've spent years working creatively, with - and as - clients. And we've developed a process that's both guarded and flexible. It's designed to keep scope front and center, to gather better, more helpful feedback from clients, to stop any squabble over payments, and to keep clients in the loop, every step of the way.