Estimates are forecasts, not promises
The single number sounds confident. The range is telling the truth. One of them blows up the relationship around week nine.
Process
26 Articles
The status meeting is a smell
A recurring meeting where nothing gets decided isn't communication. It's a weekly ceremony to confirm the project still exists.
Full-service, actually
Every agency claims full-service. Here's the difference between a long list of services and one team that never loses the thread.
Feedback is a skill
Good notes describe the problem. Bad notes prescribe the fix. The difference decides whether revisions make the work better or just different.
The kickoff meeting we actually run
A walk through the first meeting on day one — the questions we always ask, and the two that catch almost everyone…
Deadlines are design constraints
Infinite time doesn't produce better work. It produces version fourteen, which is somehow worse than version three.
Scope creep is a communication problem
The project didn't grow on its own. Somebody asked, somebody said yes, and nobody wrote it down.
Why we say no (sometimes)
Turning down work sounds noble until you have payroll. We do it anyway, and the reasons are more practical than principled.
The brief behind the brief
Clients arrive with a request. Underneath it, there's a reason. Discovery is the work of telling the two apart before anyone builds…
Good clients ask hard questions
The questions we wish every client would grill an agency with before signing anything. Including us. Especially us.
Bring us the hard one
A love letter to the briefs everyone else passed on. The weird ones, the tangled ones, the ones that arrive with an…
Embedded, not outsourced
The difference between an agency that works for you and one that works with you is quick to spot....