We use to identify agencies by either being account or creative driven. Now we identify agencies in dozens of different ways including creative, account, digital, data-driven, interactive with varying 360° experience or general agencies with varying degrees of interactive experience, to name just a few. This fragmentation has lead to a greater variety in workflow paths among agencies.

As experienced managers we know the dangers and pitfalls of having a workflow process that leans toward one of these extremes. It's no wonder that many agencies are re-examining project management and redefining traditional roles within the agency. In the quest to better manage our agencies, we are tearing down traditional silos to create cross-functional teams, on the opposite end we are also creating new digital silos with technical teams that seem to have a narrower creative function.

One of the struggles of the emerging digital agency has been to create balance. We lock in strong technically skilled project managers that can succeed on specific interactive projects, but too few can also can succeed on the larger creative client perspective. We are also asking a lot of our project mangers and lets face it, times have changed, agencies have become leaner. Combined with the perception that interactive projects have unique workflow needs that mirror the software and gaming industry with the need for less people to take on more responsibility, project managers have evolved into jack-of-all-trade producers.

A producer in the new agency model can be part account manager, project manager, production manager, technical advisor, finance manager and psuedo creative manager. From a workflow perspective, this presents new challenges that can be hard to implement in agency environment steeped in older traditions. However, I counter that each agency can find its own balance in re-assigning responsibilities. A producer is only as good as his/her team and support system. For example, while producers may take over part of the role of account executive, they should not be relied upon as someone that has the sole ability to manage the client/agency relationship. While they may be great at identifying potential new opportunities for client growth, an agency still needs to have a strong account planning and strategic account presence to build on those opportunities. 

The key is to find a balance that works best for your agency. Hire smartly. If you want to be known for more than just a specific digital space, its important to hire great general critical thinkers to supplement your technical producer team. Its similar to the way we think about creative hires. Great digital space people often need larger space thinkers. Breakthrough digital creative also require highly technical project managers to tackle a project in the digital space. However, that breakthrough often comes paired with a larger tactical idea that may go beyond digital. The craft that exists in broadcast and print production often trumps the digital content space. Finding the proper mix for your shop requires a bit of alchemy to create a larger creative production environment.

Remember, today's Facebook fan page project is yesterday's sitelet, which might be tomorrow's targeted mobile activated digital OOH advertising. What makes your agency valuable is its ability to continue to grow into these new spaces. 

So even in the digital space, projects change. What your agency managed five years ago is different than what it manages today. Stong project management theory applied to your workflow will help to maintain an environment where new projects can be managed successfully. 

Silos (functional manageres) and teams (cross-functional teams led by PMs or producers)

In the old days, we use to think very functional when it came to managing things in the agency. Production department, account management, creative department and so on. In the new nimble world of advertising where creative content is so intertwined with production, it doesn't necessarily make sense to have so many separate silos. More agencies are replacing those silos with cross-functional teams, headed up by project managers or defined producer chains. The downside to having no silos, is that advocates and specialists are highly sought after on particular projects. There is also an organic need for support teams for functions. Even project managers benefit greatly from a strong PMO. Also, the bigger the need for project managers who are highly technical, perhaps the smaller the ability to hire project managers who can go beyond their own unique experiences. Depending on the size of your agency, your matrix (mix of functional managers and project managers) will be different. You may no longer have a need for a managed print or studio department, instead you may have created a need for functionally managed backend team. At the end of the day, the most important thing that you can do in this situation is to identify a clear reporting structure that supports the team environment.

Strong project managers have always been needed in the agency, we may not of always had defined PMs, but there was always proect management responsibility. It just wasn't always clear who was ultimately responsible for the entire project. Account people did one part, the creative director did another and production finished it out. This is why in the old days, traffic was so important to the workflow of a project. Remember, we still have the same stakeholders even when we do have a project manager or producer. In many ways, project managers have become a necessity to create a consistent pulse maintaining, guiding force in the agency. They also help to free up your key players. When you have dedicated project managers, creatives have more time to create and account people have more time to spend on planning and strategy and so on.

Producer vs. project manager.

While the word producer is common in today's agency world, what that word means in an agency can vary greatly. A producer can be a specialist in one area or a generalist. A producer's role can be production centric, or can be holistic and client facing. A producer can have limited responsibility (like an art buyer) or be identified as THE end-to-end project manager. Whatever flavor you decide on, it is important to identify and make clear who is ultimately responsible for the project and team. It needs to be clearly spelled out so that everyone has the same expectations. Moving to a producer model for client engagement can be a positive one. However, it doesn't mean there should be an absence of account management. I know I'm repeating, but its important to note, a producer who has the responsibility of managing the overall project, responsibility for the technical end and the added duties of a junior account person will have limited time to think strategically and to potentially grow the business as well as manage all of the client / agency experience.

In the job listings below, I've identified some top line responsibilities. Each of the line items may be included in a potential project manager roles within an agency. Roles, however, can be mixed and matched or even made into some sort of unique hybrid particular to your shop. When you are planning out responsibilities, list out all of the tasks for each key position, balance them out, identify one role to be the ultimate project lead and clearly identify how you are going to address potential short falls or funcational manager cross overs. Above all, when under taking a transition to a project management or producer model, make sure to support your new team leaders. Empower your team leaders. Ensure that you are supportive and your entire management team is supportive of your new model. Lastly, assign one person in your shop to whom the project managers ultimately report to. 

Project management players in the agency may include the following:

Account manager

Chain (Assistant AE, Account Executive, Account Supervisor, Account Director, Head of account services)

Basics

• Client engagement (agency "face" to the client, presents estimates and SOWs, schedules, project status and deliverables). 
• All backend correspondence such as meeting reports, creative briefs, strategic briefs.
• Client status reports and client meeting facilitator
• Internal meeting coordinator and lead presenter.
• Client advocate, understands clients business, clients goals, deliverables and strategies.
• Agency advocate, understands full agency process and how best to match it with client requests.
• Creative advocate, understands agency creative process and strives to maintain creative integrity.
• Production advocate, understands production needs of both agency and client and strives to maintain production equilibrium.
• Participates in pre engagement meetings.
• Participates in planning meetings.

 Advanced

• Develops or is an advocate for strategic goals, planning and positioning.
• Marketing advocate, understanding of clients business from a client perspective.
• Media advocate, understanding of the media space and media planning.
• PR and social media advocate, understanding of client and agency PR perspectives and risk
• Research and ROI advocate.
• Grows agency relationship. Seeks out new opportunities with existing or new clients.

Project Manager

Basic

• Owns and manage project production process (Advanced creative through production process.)
• Develops RFP and Scope document.
• Defines project steps, tasks, requirements against SOW.
• Tracks timeline and milestones.
• Tracks resources.
• Translates and presents specifications and project requirements.

True Project managers:

• Develop projects and plans, direct, manage and monitor project execution. Control changes in scope and end of project closing requirements. 
• They have full authority over project scope, time, cost, resources and team members.

Advanced

• Write SOWs, assesses and manages requirements and content development.
• Manages project steps, tasks, requirements against SOW. (Scope management)
• Manages resources, timelines and milestones. (Time and cost management)
• Manages and monitors project lifecycle. (Time and cost management)
• Manages risk assessment and risk management. (Including time, costs and resources)
• Manages project quality.
• Manages actual team members. (The human resources)
• Manages project communications
• Manages project procurement.

Producer 

Chain (producer, senior producer, executive producer, production director, head of production services)

Basics 

• Estimating and project management of outside production related resources.
• Estimating and project management of internal production resources
• Production timelines, production schedules.
• Manage budgets.
• Technical and creative partner.
• Manages production process and tasks.
• Manages production tasks, activities, risk, quality control and production team member.
• Manages project procurement.

Advanced

• Estimates all aspects of project and creates SOW.
• End-to-end project management responsibility (see project manager responsibilities below).
• Skilled in advanced production or technical aspects in one or more specialties.

Hybrid

• Non-client facing: Owns project from creative through production and delivery but does not have account management responsibilities. (Typical Interactive, budget > schedules > creative > wireframes > design > development / CMS > delivery)
• Client facing level 1: Engagement (typically from presenting estimates and SOWs, project planning, correspondence, scheduling, meeting assignment)
• Client facing level 2: Account management with basic or advanced functions and responsibilities of the account manager.
• The full deal: Faces client and has full engagement and ownership of project: Owns and directs all project tasks, activities and risk centers. (project scheduling, project planning, resource and task assignments, time and resource tracking)

Specific

• Art Buyer / Photo production
• Specialty 

Production Manager

Chain (production coordinator, production manager, senior production manager, production director)

Basics

• Manage production portion of a project life-cycle and production teams as it relates to specific production experience (print, interactive, or broadcast).
• Estimating and project management of outside production related resources.
• Estimating and project management of internal production resources
• Production timelines, production schedules.
• Production advocate.
• Manage production budgets.
• Technical and creative partner.
• Manages production process and tasks.
• Manages production tasks, activities, risk, quality control and production team member.
• Manages project procurement.
• Interactive example: Ownership after hand-off of creative development. production budget > schedules > wireframes > ui > development / CMS > delivery)
• Print example: Ownership after hand-off of creative development. production budget > schedules > art or photo buying > retouching > mechanicals / prepress > print > fulfillment >delivery)

 Advanced

• Advanced technical background in one or more specific areas.
• Creative partner, contributes to the creative process.
• Full circle SOW, estimate all costs
• Full Project management responsibility 
• Owns production management from a technical and creative development standpoint, advisor and partner of the creative process. 
• (Interactive example: creative development > production budget > schedules > wireframes > design > ui > development / CMS > delivery) 

Traffic Manager

Chain (traffic manager > junior AE, project or producer)

Basics

• Collects project information.
• Formats project information from stakeholders.
• Collects status information and records.
• Creates client and agency status.
• Tracks resources from a logistic background, flags issues.
• Keeps project records.
• Schedules internal meetings.
• Responsible for gathering and tracking internal creative or project approvals.
• May create master agency status.
• Tracks task assignments, but has no responsibility from a project manager standpoint.

Resource Manager

Basics

• Tracks project assignments and time records for staff and freelancers.
• Assesses which team members are available and appropriate for specific projects.
• Works with project managers to assess best usage of resources.
• Heads up human resource management risk.
• Seeks and maintains freelance base.
• Can be specific to teams (by client(s) or full agency.

 Advanced

• Human resources background.
• Recruits and has a background in an agency specialty.

Your account team, your creative department, producers and project managers all need to have a sense of what that statement means. A by the book, strictly business-oriented account or project management centric agency might very well be productive, but the end product may never win awards. Mediocrity doesn't get you to the next level, mediocrity doesn't attract creative talent -- great work created in a great environment does.

Great ideas are crafted. 
Building a flexible workflow system in your ad agency is key to building a framework where great ideas can grow and develop. The workflow in your agency shouldn't be overly complex, but it shouldn't be a free-for-all either. Great projects happen when you can build on the basics.

Great environments start with a commitment.
A system for systems sake means nothing. As an agency leader, you are a role model. You need to set the stage for how things are run. When you commit to a new framework, champion the changes. Allow for the new system to fall into place. 

Rethink your agency process. 
Start with a clean slate. When you start from scratch, nothing should be considered sacred. Ask yourself if you really need those four levels of account management or the division in production. Identify your core team and then build from there. Your new process should also be an outline, not a book. If its longer then a few pages, start cutting.

Rethink your agency staffing.
Creative teams shouldn't be four levels away from a client and neither should your project manager. Have a lead for the big picture, but let your team face the client. Simplify the information exchange chain. 

Identity the basics and stick to them.
A sow, a brief, a change order, a schedule – identify the key elements and what works best for your agency. Make people accountable for following through on these elements. If you concentrate on the basics, there will be less surprises, time and cash lost. 

Keep the information flow open and accessible. 
Expect and ensure that everyone has access to the information they need. 

Train your agency.
Training your staff in the new framework shouldn't be a one time process. All workflow systems require nurturing. Manage the new changes and keep up with how everything is going. On-board everyone in the agency and set up a training program for new employees.

Empower your staff, empower your teams.
When people know they are responsible, they act. When people are accountable and mutually depend on each other they will step up and work together at whole different level. If you find yourself less at ease with letting go, you might want to have a hard look on why you can't let go. Creatives and true professionals do not like being micromanaged and they don't have to be. 

Create cross team interaction.
Set up a mentoring system, mix up teams, build in time for cross team brainstorming or creative huddle time. Every team can benefit from outside input at times. Create your own way of fostering this in your agency.

Everyone should be considered a creative.
Great ideas happen because everyone in the agency plays a part in crafting the idea. Everyone should feel like they can contribute to the process and should be encouraged to do so. The best project managers in an agency are not strictly business. They are creative and they allow for creativity to happen. Rethink the whole concept of what project management in your agency really means. Creativity can happen at any stage of the project and you need team leaders who can help foster that creativity. 

Lastly, create and maintain a positive environment. 
Advertising is a fast-paced, long hour environment. Maintaining morale is just as important to the quality of work as it is to the bottom line. If you want the best out of people and the best creative to happen, treat people right. 

Its Monday, 9 a.m. and the whole team is gathering in the conference room. People are talking about what they did that weekend, but the looks are restless. Trains are running late and everyone is waiting for the creative director or head of account services to arrive. Status reports are still printing and people are looking at their watches. The warning signs that this may be a long meeting are already there.

Do you start? Do you wait? Do you dread this is going to be another wasted morning?

Honestly, it may be time to reset the way you approach the weekly meetings.

Many may argue that status meetings are a waste. I disagree. Not only does the status meeting provide the team a chance to discuss the latest happenings on creative, production and media projects (which is vital to your project management goals), there is, I argue, a larger, more important reason to have these meetings.

Group cohesiveness.

Weekly meetings may be the only time the entire group will get together, save for happy hour, the entire week. So it can be a very wise choice to keep this meeting in place. These meetings provide a chance for the group to get to know each other better, to hear about other off topic goings-on and provide a bonding experience, even if it is to moan about how early it is. While we learn and hear about problems and issues, this is an opportunity for everyone to learn what's going on in each other's departments. For example, you may find that there opportunities to grow cross-discipline cooperation or for someone to share some new knowledge that may benefit the entire group. This is the time to encourage feedback and ideas, to re-enforce that this is the time where anyone can speak up and contribute to any project or activity. Yes, the full off-topic conversation can be pushed to an offline discussion, but at least the new connection is made.

So, how can we make these meetings more successful?

1. Have a consistent member of the management team run the meeting. Setup, in advance who the substitute facilitator will be, so these meetings can continue to run on time.

2. Stick to a start time and an end time. If 9 o'clock is too early for everyone, move it to 9:30. Set a start time and stick to it. Then set a time limit for the meeting and stick to it.

3. Set a consistent agenda. Go old school if you have to; old Business, new business, status reports, announcements and adjourn. It sounds simple, but it works. It sets expectations and routines that will carry from one meeting to the next.

4. Keep things focused. If you are leading the meeting, speak up when things get too off topic. Interrupt, but be nice about it. If things need further follow up, make people accountable for a future get together or huddle on the issue. Be positive and actively facilitate.

5. Make sure status reports are done (on paper or digitally). There should be no status reports where people are pulling things out of memory.

6. Status report discussions should be top line during these meetings. Doing the report ahead of time is an important organizational tool. However, if someone doesn't have one, don't loose your cool. Stay positive, address the issue, make people accountable and move on.

7. Be a role model and set expectations on how people treat each other during the meeting. It should go without saying, as the leader of the meeting, you set the tone. Note conflict situations, address them in the proper way. Actively participate in conflict resolution. If needed, summarize agreements during the meeting to ensure that everyone is unified in how to address the issue and then follow up after the meeting to make sure things are o.k.

8. Make sure your project managers or account managers are taking notes.

9. Ensure there is follow through on the status reports. Official "published" versions of the status reports should go out shortly after the meeting, revised with comments and input from this status meeting.

10. Try a having a meeting without laptops, without iphones and without blackberries. Limit distractions.

11. On the opposite end, if you do have the room, get out of the conference room. Less formal meeting settings can place people more at ease and perhaps be more open and willing to participate. Make sure you do it in an area where everyone can see each other.

12. Above all, be positive and show energy. Encourage people to participate and encourage feedback. Draw people in and if someone is late, welcome them. The more accepting you are, the better at ease your staff is going to be and the more your staff is going to want to contribute.

Above all, these meetings should be part of the model on how the entire agency should operate. It's an ad agency, right? It's all about ideas, right? Then start here. Create an environment where ideas are encouraged and I believe you'll find people participating and being actively engaged.

The Drop Dead Date. 

In this day and age, the gravity of the phrase, "drop dead date," is lost in translation. Just what does this phrase mean? As any salt-worthy project manager and producer knows, it can mean just about anything. 

However be savvy when examining deadlines. Just because someone give you a rush date, you need to do a background check to ensure this is the real due date. Its up to you as a project manager to find out if the date is fixed, flexible, past-due or just plain made up. In some cases, there may be other due dates prior to the final deadline that are even more important. For example, quick deadlines can mean very short client approval times. Your client may have very restrictive approval dates and times. It's essential for you to find out up front.

Why is this important? It can mean all the difference in deciding which resources to put on task, how much the budget is going to be and how many late nights and weekends its going to take to finish the project. This is especially important in an environment where all projects have a sense of urgency. Let's face it, when everything is rush and the deadlines almost always seem to get pushed back, your team looses trust in you and can in-turn stop caring about the work, and that's the last thing you want to happen. 

So what can you do to help manage those crazy deadlines? 

• Establish what a real sense of urgency is. Distinguish real deadlines from the fake ones. Be real and be honest.
• Be a role model. Tight deadlines are stressful. Don't freak out. Nip conflict and grumbling in the butt, before it develops. Care about the work.
• Be optimistic. The way you portray the situation often goes a long way in getting people to rise to the occasion. Deal with feelings in your team in a supportive and positive manner.
• Manage your team. Delegate, check in, but give people time, even if its shorter task deadlines. Don't say, "I need this right away, or yesterday." Define small deadlines, but make people accountable for them. And by all means, stick to those times and dates.
• Make sure all members of your team are available, that means all creatives, account people, production staff and the clients. Set expectations for key milestones to ensure quick approvals.
• Protect your team members from distraction. Let them focus on what needs to get done.
• Be responsive. Be available to your team and get answers.
• Maintain high standards and quality control. During crazy times, quality control is super important. Do not accept anything less then perfection. Too many times projects explode over simple proofreading errors or mistakes. Take the time to check the phone numbers, URLs and specs yourself, in addition to your quality control team.
• Be flexible. Fast deadlines can mean constant change.  
• Be engaged, be a leader.

I would love to put the phrase "Which one do you want, Cheap, Fast or Great?" to its final resting place. It no longer applies in today's world. Not to say that many projects don't suffer under tight deadlines. We certainly shouldn't be encouraging disadvantageous project scenarios. But producing quick turn-around projects successfully on all three of these fronts can still happen in today's work environment.

I think we can all look back at some of our most successful creative projects and smile. We all know of those projects, the ones we actually put in our books, the ones that have won awards, those often come about under great pressure. Why does great work sometimes happen during these times? When a deadline is real, and a client is willing to share risk -- creatively, teams rise to the occasion.

At the end of the day, when a team wants to produce great work, and a client is accepting, we can make it happen.

However, let’s face it, do our teams really read through the entire brief? As we stand up to present the brief to the group do we make sure that everyone is engaged and really listening? As team leaders, it is our responsibility to make sure that everyone on the team accurately understands what they are expected to accomplish. And as team members, it is also our responsibility to make sure we understand what is expected.

Too often we forget that not everyone “hears what we hear.” Listening is an often over looked part of team communications. Understanding that team members have unique listening styles can help us to become better speakers and effective listeners.

Listening is a two-way street.

When a team is working together there is much to be said. When we think about communicating within our groups we often speak of informing, coaching, debating and advising our team members. However, true communication, is a two-way street. It is a mutually exchange of information that requires an individual to not only speak, but to listen to what the other person is saying. Listening to an individual is more than just the mechanics of hearing. It is how we process this information and what cognitive choices we make on how or if we respond. How we listen is just as important in how we convey our thoughts and ideas. Listening is a cognitive process that affects how we evaluate, perceive and remember information (Worthington, 2008).

Research not only suggests that they way we listen can be categorized by listening styles but it goes one step further to say that the way in which we listen can be tied closely with our own personality and temperament style (Worthington, 2008). So why would this be important? I believe that if we place value in knowing what our personality style is and how that affects us in a team environment, then we can also benefit from understanding the way in which we prefer to listen. Previous research has shown that a person’s listening style is by habit and even when we are aware of our own particular style, we often find it difficult to switch to a different style that maybe better in a particular situation (Worthington, 2008).

In the end, how we listen is also just as important in how we speak. Studies have shown that we spend 40% of our waking hours listening and 35% talking (Hagevik, 1999). While working in a group we often will take the time to adjust our style of speaking to better suit the individual in which we are speaking with. Do we talk differently when the client is in the room? Or when the ECD is absent? We may not even be aware that we are doing so (Weaver, Watson, & Barker, 1996). However, it can be much harder to change the way in which we listen (Weaver, Watson, & Barker, 1996). I think by having a better understanding of the differences in listening styles it may help to make us better communicators.

So, what do we do when we listen?

Listening is information processing on the cognitive level, it is how we perceive, process, evaluate, remember and understand information (Worthington, 2008). Listening is the process of constructing meaning and the preparation of responding to spoken and or/ nonverbal communication (Lu, 2005). We can also make a choice to listen and to what extent we are engaged with the speaker. We also process what we are hearing differently than another listener.

It has been shown that a person’s listening skill is more from habit than conscious choice and people typically develop and rely on a dominant style of listening (Weaver, Watson, & Barker, 1996). Scholars have long debated that the way a person listens, these habits that are created, contribute to the development of an individual’s personality. Listening is indeed thought to be one of human’s earliest communication skills that are developed (Lu, 2005). Before we can speak or communicate non-verbally, we have already learned how to listen. Scholars have long thought that our personality emerges, develops and gets refined through the lens of our interactions and communication with others in society and listening plays a large part in that development  (Weaver, Watson, & Barker, 1996).

Take the test.

There are many tests which seek to discover an individual’s listening preference. The Listening Style Profile (LSP-16) developed by Watson and Baker, is just one of several tests that seek to measure and identify individual listening style preferences (Worthington 2003). The test identifies an individual as preferring one of four dominant listening styles. In this test, the results show that a person may identify more as a people, content, time or action oriented listener (Worthington 2003).

According to the LSP-16, people-oriented listeners are individuals that look to find areas of common interest with a speaker and believe that it is important to understand how the person feels (Worthington 2010). They are better able to identify a person’s emotional state and mood and may internalize these feelings (Worthington 2003). People-oriented speakers are usually more empathetic to the speaker and are often found to have a personality that is associated with people who have the Myers-Brigg type, Feeling (Worthington 2008).

People who prefer logic, more direct, to-the-point and organized speakers are said to be action-oriented listeners (Worthington 2008). They can be seen as often being impatient with speakers who are disorganized in thought, and often will internally question the incoming messages from a speaker, looking for inconsistencies and errors (Worthington 2003). Action-oriented listeners may be individuals who are also seen as decision makers and may score higher in the Sensing and Judging on the Myers-Brigg Type (Worthington 2003).

Individuals who focus more on a speaker’s “supporting evidence,” during a conversation tend to like to listen to facts before forming concrete opinions or judgments are described as content-oriented listeners (Worthington 2008). These people tend to be listeners who will often ask speakers to provide more information in order to explain their thoughts or ideas, they also prefer or favor listening to more complex or technical information (Worthington 2003). Content-oriented listeners are also often associated with the Myers-Brigg Type, Thinking (Worthington 2003).

The last listening style that is noted on the LSP-16 is time-oriented listeners. These listeners focus their communicating on time related and time-managed events. They prefer people not to be wordy, who get to the point of the conversation earlier and may interrupt speakers if they are deemed to be “wasting time” (Worthington 2008). They will often indicate to others how much time they have available to listen to them (Worthington 2003). On the Myers-Brigg Type they are more often associated with the Judging personality trait (Worthington 2010).

The second widest used test is The Listening Style Inventory or LSI, a highly recognized inventory assessment test that is often used in educational and management settings (Pierce et al. 2003). This test was designed to assess a person’s perceived listening style rather than actual listening ability (Lu, 2005). The LSI is a self-administered test and is meant to be a tool to make listeners more self-aware of their own preferred listening behavior. The test interprets a person’s preference to be either an active, involved, passive or detached listener (Lu, 2005).

Once we become aware of our own listening style, it allows us a establish a basis for not only self analyzing how we communicate with our teams, but also allows us to be open to what would make us become better and more effective listeners. In difficult situations where there is a communication breakdown, we certainly can benefit from analyzing why the communication is negative. Is our listening style causing us to assume certain expectations or intent about the speaker? It can be helpful if we take a step back and ask questions to clarify the communication so that it provides new insight into what is being said (Gunn, 2003). When we are listeners in our team, it is important for us to be responsible and to come away with 100% clarity of what is being said (Hagevik, 1999). It is not up to the speaker to make sure that we understand what is being said it is up to us, the listener (Hagevik, 1999).

Team leaders have responsibility for ensuring understanding.

On the opposite end, team leaders do have a certain responsibility to make a connection with the group. If a team member does not understand the task or what the goal is at hand, then the whole group can be affected. As a manager, when we can identify listening styles in others, it can provide a basis of how we may need to change the conversation so that our intent of the conversation is more receptive with the listener (Lu, 2005). When we know the style of the individual we can be better prepared to deliver our message in a tone and style in which the listener will be more receptive (Bennett & Wood, 1989). Above all, the team leader has the additional responsibility to communicate in a way in which to defuse confrontational situations and lower the aggressiveness of the conversation (Weaver & Weaver, 2008).

Too often I think we forget that not everyone “hears what we hear.” Our listening style is unique in much the same way our personality is unique. We form listening habits early in life and these habits can be hard to break. However, this does not mean we can’t learn how to be more effective listeners or more aware speakers. Team communication is important and when we understand each other, we are better able to understand what is expected of us. We should respect that not everyone listens the way we do. It is our responsibility to make sure we our audience understands us and there is clarity in expectations. Great communication paves the way for a positive team experience.

Want to learn more about listening? Visit www.listen.org

References

Bennett, R. T., & Wood, R. V. (1989, April/May). Effective communication via listening styles. Business, 39(2), 45-48.

Bodie, G. D., & Worthington, D. L. (2010). Revisiting the listening styles profile (LSP-16): A confirmatory factor analytic approach to scale validation and reliability estimation. The International Journal of Listening, 24, 69-88.

Gunn, B. (2003, October). Best Practices: Confident listening. Strategic Finance, 85(4), 13-14.

Hagevik, S. (1999, July/August). Just listening. Journal of Environmental Health, 62(1), 46-48.

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Your strategic department plays a huge role in how this document is put together. Effective advertising and successful projects can trace a lot of their success from a great starting point. That starting point is a creative brief with sound strategies, presented during a productive kick-off meeting.

The brief is the document that outlines the projects framework, which includes the projects background, its objectives and strategic goals, relevant research and competitive environment information and current consumer information to the old fashion proposition and positioning statement, budget overviews, mandatories and basic timeline.

That sounds like a lot of information to cover, but in the end the document should be relevant, timely and fully cover the basics. It should also inspire the entire team so that they have the information they need to channel their creative efforts to produce solutions that not only serve the best interests of the client, but produces great work.

Most importantly, the creative brief should be a balanced document that is going to be helpful to the overall creative process. If there is too little information on the brief, stop the kick-off meeting. The same should go for having too much information on the document. The brief is not meant to be a doctoral thesis, if your agency is spending too much time creating the document, while it whittles away precious project time, you may need to take a step back and make adjustments.

Questions to answer on the brief may include;

Project Background
What's the background to this job? 
What's the client asking the agency to do?
What's the competitive environment? 
Who are the consumers?

Strategic Viewpoints
What's this specific project’s strategy?
How does this fit in to the overall strategy (for the client or brand)?
What's the relevant research?
How does the agency perceive the product/brand? 

Positioning / Position Statement
What's the agency being tasked to do on this job?
What's this brand’s positioning? 
How does this fit in with the overall corporate positioning?

The Task
What are the client’s objectives for this project?
What are they expecting to accomplish?
What are the basics we need to communicate? What are the mandatories? 

The Audience
Who are we talking to?
What do the consumers feel about the category, the brand, the product, the company and the competition?
What do we want the consumers to feel or perceive at the end of the project?
What do we want the consumers to do?
Where are we driving the consumers?
Why should the audience care about the positioning?
How should we communicate with the consumer? Tone, voice.

The Basics
What's the scope of the media?
What's the budget?
What's the timing?
Who's on the team?

And lastly, we should ask ourselves, does this brief make sense? Is this the right project we should be doing for this client at this time?

Enjoy. Ed