Divide and Conquer: Preventing Burnout Through “Team Working” Better
November 15, 2023
As a creative agency, we’re constantly thinking about what’s best for our clients. Being a project manager, it’s only natural to get laser-focused on our specific clients. Which is fine, until it isn’t. We’ve recently found that sometimes being laser-focused on our clients can often turn into taking everything onto our plate to a point where we become overly stuffed—and we all know how we are when we’re stuffed. We’ve all experienced burnout in our careers, and we can all agree that it’s not fun, nor productive.
We’ve certainly all felt the weight of our accounts at times. And when the tasks and projects keep piling up, we don’t have time to truly process all that can be done creatively for our account, which can leave us feeling stuck. Needless to say, we all knew it was time for a new process that would take that boulder off of the account lead’s back.
When our fearless leader, Kate, introduced a new structure that would help better divide out the responsibilities within our accounts giving each of us varying roles across accounts, we knew that this was the solution we were looking for! This new structure would allow us to have breathing room across the account, giving the rest of the team an opportunity to support the account lead.
Below you can see an example of a current project team structure that we use for a client. This has really helped us break down each account into the specific parts, such as ongoing marketing, website, content, etc. The great thing about this is that it’s flexible. Because each account is different, the project team structure will be different. But baseline, it gets everyone on the same page of what their roles are! For example, I may be lead on one account, lead social on another and a copywriter for yet another account. This variety of roles allows us to flex our creative skills and exercise different marketing muscles for different brands. In the end, our accounts are able to grow, and so are our team members!
We’re always looking for better processes that will increase our productivity and ability to be creative—and we found what works for us. We’ve been able to engage differently with each other and with our clients. Individual creativity is an amazing thing, but collective creativity is even better. And when you divide roles between accounts, you can individually conquer your area, as well as bring new ideas as a whole.
If you’re looking for a team that can collectively deliver creative solutions for your brand, all to prevent the “over stuffing,”, you’ve come to the right place. We’re always ready to connect and strengthen your brand.
Wonderfully said. I was once advised that when lanes (lane as in roles and responsibilities) are clearly depicted, there’s a better flow of traffic. When things like this are automated, it give people room to creatively think hence better outcome. Another tool I’ve found to be helpful is the RACI matrix, it aligns tasks, milestones, deliverables, etc with the individuals’ responsibility.