Success Story 1: Who's Working for Whom?

Situation

It's 2013.  A Fortune 150 company has had a long, entrenched relationship with its ad agency.  Sometimes it's hard to tell who's working for whom.  But the agency has a reputation for sterling work, so the company gives it a long rope.

Still, there are differences of opinion about the process used to produce excellent media campaigns.  One bone of contention is the Creative Brief: The company wants the agency to fill out the Brief online, using a site built for campaign collaboration.  The agency prefers to use a home-grown, offline PowerPoint template.

This may all seem trivial, but neither side is blinking, and it's all delaying a new site release.  The agency digs in its heels: We will only use our offline PowerPoint template.

Approach

As a consultant for a firm that advised the Fortune 150 company, I led the charge to assess the situation.  Our team needed to find a solution that worked for everyone.

We recommended a multi-pronged research study involving both the company and agency: stakeholder interviews, surveys, and workplace "shadowing."  

We were met with more resistance from the agency, who insisted: There's no need for research, because we know what we want -- our offline PowerPoint template.

We persisted.  Help us understand the creative process, we said.  We're just looking to improve this for everyone.  Finally, they consented to providing some interviews.

Insights

We spoke with those who filled out Creative Briefs.  This gave us a rare glimpse under the hood at their creative processes.  

We quickly came to appreciate why they liked their PowerPoint template.  It had features and functionality the company's online Brief didn't have, such as auto-fills, useful descriptions and a visual layout that was holistic rather than linear. 

With a better understanding of their needs, and as we began to earn their trust, we asked a delicate question: Did the Brief really need to be offline -- or would it be OK to imbed in into the existing site?

You mean put the PowerPoint into the online tool? they asked.

Well, yes -- basically.

Sure, they said.  We just want our PowerPoint.  If you can get that online, that's fine.

With that, we were halfway to a solution.

Action (and more insights)

We took our insights back to our technical team.  Could we imbed the agency's PowerPoint template into our online experience?

They explored this option.  After much analysis, we found that it was technically possible but would be very clunky.  Uploads, downloads, version controls, an awkward approval process... This would be one of those solutions that satisfied requirements but yielded an unappealing, inelegant experience.

Amid this exploration, we wondered: The agency keeps saying the Brief has to be their PowerPoint -- but does it, really?  What if we created a note-perfect simulation of the PowerPoint -- something that looks, feels and behaves like the template but is actually built with web technologies?

Our implementation team created a clickable prototype of the online experience, with the Creative Brief spawned in a lightbox and looking at every pixel like the PowerPoint.  We took it back to the agency for review.

They loved it.  They filled it out, collaborated on it, submitted it for a simulated approval, all the while marveling that we'd found a way to imbed their PowerPoint template.

Time for full disclosure.  There's just one thing, we said.  It's not actually PowerPoint.

No?

No -- it's actually build with custom code.  It looks and behaves just like the PowerPoint, but it's not.

They thought about this, then shrugged.  Well, that's fine -- it's really the same thing, right?

Right.

Finally, we had a complete solution.

Results

Once launched, the agency started to use the online Brief to their satisfaction.

The partnering company was happy to have a new sense of compliance and transparency -- with the Creative Brief online, they had more visibility into the agency's creative process.

Lessons

This case study illustrates crucial tenets of creating user experiences in complex human environments:

• When determining what clients need, it's often necessary to delve deeper than what they say they need.  Never assume they can articulate what they need from a solution perspective -- it's the UX team's job to find an optimal approach and make recommendations accordingly.
• Those offering tactics for solutions before analysis is complete are often jumping the gun.  First find out what needs to accomplish; the tactics come later. 

For this project, the following assets were created.  For samples, contact me.

• Business Requirements
• Work Flow (integrated with assets)
• Research Plan
• Online Survey
• Interview Protocols (Users, Stakeholders)
• Consolidated Research Report & Recommendations
• Wireframes
• Functional Prototype
• Visual Branding
• Functional Specifications
• QA Plan & Protocol