Ideavelopmentreation
Forgiving a pretty face
Facebook posts its status update on television.
The Evolution of the Holiday Card
Outside the agency environment, I was introduced to Agile development: an iterative approach to development that sees a project evolve as it’s built. But typically within the agency world, a small core team finalizes each project concept before production starts. This can lead to a one-dimensional project and everyone outside the core team feeling like a grunt worker. How can everyone on a team have the opportunity in each project to contribute – especially in his or her area of expertise?
Google has offered an Agile solution to agencies. Rather than letting one side do all the ideation, this approach introduces flexibility through iteration. It gets more people involved in the thinking part of the project: people with different skills in the trends and technologies that will make the project shine. To avoid the chaos and typical ineffectiveness of a free-for-all brainstorm, the project is broken down into stories, and stories are fleshed out by small teams.
The project benefits because not all the thinking needs to be finalized before any building starts, giving more time for ideas to ferment. Crack teams work on key components, each bringing their unique skills to the project, and the project improves as it evolves into a final piece. It answers the question, “how can developers and art directors work creatively together?” Ethan Marcotte in Responsive Web Design explores this at some length: he proposes that this is an ideal method for building responsive applications. With the plethora of connected devices today, responsive design is not simply a nice-to-have, but essential criteria for modern, cost effective interactive. But it definitely requires teamwork between artist and programmer.
Today’s users choose which ads they watch, and only interact with the brands they like; they share and promote stories only if they are worthy or offer sufficient reward. The need for engaging ideas has never been greater – iterative and collaborative development gets the best ideas, creative, and technology into each finished piece, and those working on the piece each have the satisfaction of being a part of its creation.
Stuart
January 18, 2013 @ 7:32 pm
What?
James
February 11, 2013 @ 2:15 pm
The need for good work has never been greater, but the control over whether it can happen has slipped from the fingers of people with creative hearts into those of the accountants.
These days just trying to get someone to admit that it isn’t a horrid money sink to get a whole team in a room together to discuss something can be a challenge, let alone taking an instant more time than is strictly necessary at any stage of the project lifecycle to get input from other specialties.
Nickel and dimeing is the way of things right now and nobody – even the Creative department – is really going to feel like they’re able to do their best work until someone decides that it’s worth spending the money on doing so again.
The shift to selling ad services based on monetary ROI rather than less quantifiable factors has done us all (including the clients, I think) a huge disservice. Until/unless there’s a swing back, get used to doing the bare minimum, with the least amount of input, on negative time, with little to no innovation.
Joe
April 3, 2013 @ 2:29 pm
Advertising lives in a waterfall world. Agile and the iterative process works best for software development… Not August 15th Back To School deadlines.
The Agency process still works. Marketers and Agencies need to give it the proper amount of time, rather than trying to cut the time in half.
SocietyOfDigitalAgencies
April 23, 2013 @ 5:12 pm
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