This document provides an overview of lean planning and how agencies can adopt lean startup principles. It discusses that lean planning focuses on continuous customer interaction, establishing revenue goals from the beginning, and assuming features and customers are unknowns. Agencies are traditionally not built to be lean, focusing on large commissions and billings. The document advocates adopting lean principles like prototyping, testing hypotheses with customers, being willing to pivot ideas based on learning, and iterating campaigns based on customer feedback rather than assuming big, perfect campaigns are needed. The overall message is that lean planning prioritizes minimum viable products, continuous learning, and adapting based on discovering what customers really want rather than large pre-defined projects.

1. How to Do
Lean Planning
(and what does that mean anyway?)

2. Hi.
@farrahbostic hashtag:
#4AsLeanPlanning

3. Stuff I’ve done.
ads
campaigns
websites
games
strategies
businesses
products
media
even a little code
and an absurd number of decks

4. What I do now is design
digital things for clients...
that are increasingly
centered on mobile & social
experiences.

5. What we’re going to do together
I’m going to talk about how to do Lean planning.
Then you’re going to get to use what you learn.
There’ll be teams, and you’ll be expected to go talk to
people on the street.
Fun, right?

6. So what’s all this
about Lean &
startups?

7. “Lean” is hot right now
http://theleanstartup.com/

8. It’s a reaction to
waste, superstition,
and bias.

9. Th
e
Requirements tra
w d
at iti
er on
fa a
ll l s
m of
od tw
Design el ar
e
Implementation
Testing
Maintenance

10. The results for start-ups:
High burn rate
Swinging for the fences
Full management teams
Assuming the customer is known
Assuming the features are known
Assuming growth happens by execution

11. Principles of Lean Start-ups
Continuous customer interaction
Revenue goals from day one
No scaling until revenue
Assume customer and features are unknowns
Low burn by design, not crisis

12. Let the stealing begin...
Do Agencies Need to Google
Think Like Software #Firestarters:
Companies? Agile Planning

13. Fact:
It’s easy to talk about “lean”.
It’s hard to be Lean.

14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J9KhpgYVB0

15. So, where are the
Lean agencies?http://theleanstartup.com/

16. Agencies aren’t
built to be Lean.

17. Ad people
still idolize this
douchebag -
the creative genius
& guru.

18. All agencies seem
lean in a pitch.
http://rpminsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/our-creative-department.html

19. Production
Media
Creative
Testing
Planning &
Creative
Account
Service
Client
But then... RFP

20. Our business: Ads.
Commissioned by clients.
Designed by agencies.
Executed by vendors.

21. The traditional model
Billings = The total cost to produce & place campaigns/ads
Revenue = ~15% of billings
Profit = ~20% of revenue
3% return on effort = a model in which size matters

22. We think advertising
is complicated
Clients Consumers
Publishers
Ad Production
Agencies Media Houses
Agencies

23. Hired for lots of reasons,
fired for only a few
Bad strategy, bad creative, bad service.
http://www.rswus.com/survey/2011-survey-clients-look-ahead-at-agencies

24. But really,
business is complicated
Businesses Growth
Media
Shareholders
Consumers
Partners
Competitors Regulators

25. A little story...
“Is it the bits?”

26. No vision.
Research is too often used the way a
drunk uses a lamp post:
for support, rather than illumination.
We were asked a question meant for
the former, not the latter.

27. We asked anyway
It couldn’t have been the bits -
Nobody knew they were gone.
In fact, nobody’d heard from the brand in years.
People (and dogs) had changed -
Lots more choices, no more junk food.

28. “You’ve got 99 problems...
and the bits ain’t one.”

29. We suggested a pivot.
Three-ingredient dog food.
Real food, no fillers.
With a new brand ID & campaign connecting the old,
loved image (something dogs love),
to a new doggie parenting style
(something owners love giving dogs).

30. “Thanks, but we just
wanted to know if it was
the bits.”

31. Product-Market Fit
“What do you want from me?
Fine writing? Or do you want to see
the goddamned sales curve stop moving
down and start moving up?”
— Rosser Reeves

32. So - what does it
really mean to think
like a startup?

33. “You need to add value to people's lives,
not just expect them to participate
because you goddamn well asked them.”
Mel Exon, BBH Labs
http://anjalir.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/sxsw-in-retrospect-the-last-of-the-launch-and-leave-ems/

34. We have an ownership problem.
The client’s boss owns the business.
The client owns the brand.
Agencies own... advertising.

35. Our product is campaigns
Our economic buyer is the client.
Our end user is the audience.
We have to design for both.

36. Let’s focus.
The problem facing a Lean planner is not
‘what about the creative brief’?
It’s ‘how do we seek an effective campaign model
with as little waste as possible?’
Or, ‘how do we build the minimal experience or
utility that makes the most difference in the short
term, that we can scale?’

37. Client Brief
Research
Creative Brief
Creative Development
Production
Media!

38. by Th
-p e c
Client Brief ro re
du a
ct tive
of b
Research th rie
is f
pr is
oc a
es
Creative Brief s.
Creative Development
Production
Media!

39. Let’s idolize this
TV douchebag
genius instead.

40. The client brief is
just one input to
campaign model
seeking.
It’s not the
“truth”.

41. What start-ups focus on:
Prototyping.
Testing.
“Existing companies execute
business models, while startups
search for a business model.”
— Steve Blank
Discovery.

42. What that means for us...
Learning.
Understanding.
Empathy.

43. How to do
Customer Discovery
(for planners)
With thanks to Steve Blank

44. 5 steps

45. Step 0

46. Develop a
vision.

47. “We always have a vision that is
clearly articulated, big enough to
matter & shared by the whole team.
“Our goal is always to discover
which aspects of this vision are
grounded in reality & adapt those
aspects that are not.”
This is the ‘brief’...
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

48. What are we really trying to do?
Who do we think will want this?
Why will they care - and do they care enough to act?
How will we know when we win?

49. Step 1

50. Start guessing.
Generate hypotheses:
About the customer.
About what matters to them.
About how they live their lives.
About how we can create something
they desire or provide a solution to a
painful problem.

51. Commit to your guesses.
About your customer and their problem or desire.
About what to make (the campaign).
About where to place or build the campaign.
About how you’ll get people there.
About what the market is like.
About who your true competitors are.
About what should constitute success.

52. Time, place &
Branded tone
experiences &
Freelancers utilities Interactions & Our client’s
Solving a
touch-points customers,
Production Houses problem
prospects, and
their
Media publishers Satisfying a
influencers or
need
gatekeepers
Clients
People Paid, earned &
owned media
Software & APIs
Distribution &
The client’s product sales
or brand equity
Client pays for strategy, development,
implementation, media/hosting, testing
Pass-through costs
and iteration
Salaries & operating expenses
What if you could invent new revenue
streams for your agency or client?
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/ http://thestartuptoolkit.com/

53. Step 2

54. Get out of the building.

55. Talk to people.
Not a lot. 5-10.
Not in a facility.
This ain’t
Not through a recruiter. market research, so
we don’t have to be
Not the perfect ‘respondent.’ science-y.

56. In fact...
After 3 people, prioritize your top 3 issues or
questions.
After 5 people, start asking new questions.
This isn’t about approval.
It’s about learning.

57. Prepare to be
wrong

58. Step 3

59. Be honest.
Are these really your customers?
Is their problem really painful, or
their desire really strong?
Does it even exist?
Are they really making decisions
the way you thought?
What do you need to change?

60. A reality check.
Talk to your “co-founders” (e.g., clients & team).
Do you need to seek other customers that are a
better fit?
Do you need to rethink your positioning?
Is it possible to give people what they want?
Do you need to start over?

61. Step 4

62. Repeat.
Learn
Measure
Build

63. Planning is...
campaign model design
“I don’t need any
more ideas. We’ve got
plenty of ideas.
I need to know what to
make.”

64. Principles of Lean Start-ups
(for Ad Agencies)
• Assume the client briefs are hypotheses to be tested.
• Continuous customer interaction - with both client & consumer.
• Establish clear goals for the campaign from day one.
• Start simple, and then iterate on successes and learn from
failures.
• Create right-sized, integrated teams, provide the right
resources & tools as they are needed, and keep score with
vendors & partners.

66. How do planners
make stuff?

67. What’s a prototype?
It’s not a finished product.
It can be a drawing.
Or a description.
It’s enough for people to react to.

68. Why prototype?
Because, otherwise, we’re still just guessing.

70. What’s iterating?
It’s not starting over.
It’s not doing something else.
It’s not adding on features.
It’s evolving, refining, maximizing, optimizing...

71. The goal isn’t perfection.
The goal is the minimum you can make or do that
provides the most perceived benefit to the customer, and
is different enough from other options they know about.
The point is to make something that we can deploy & test
& learn from.
For once, good enough might actually be good enough.

72. A note on
pivots

73. Lean Pirates &
Agile Ninjas talk
about ‘pivoting’ a lot

74. Pivoting isn’t a
goal.
It’s a necessity.

75. It happens when
you’ve done all you
can with the 1st idea.

76. And you make the
intuitive leap to a
better one.

77. Where does this
intuition come
from?

78. Empathy & Discovery.
Learn
Measure
Build

79. Mahalo.