The 80/20 Rule Applied to Digital Production

Each week I have anywhere between 10-20 conversations with marketing, creative, and ad operations leaders. These posts contain what I’ve learnt about current challenges in the industry, solutions, and ideas. No brand or names will be mentioned for privacy purposes. 

Developers are immensely valuable. In fact, they’re probably one of the most in-demand professions right now. 

They are highly paid, smart, and in my experience, always looking for new challenges. 

So why do brands & agencies often waste their developer’s talents?

This topic came up recently when I was sitting down with a Technology Director & Creative Director.

During our conversation, they mentioned that it wasn’t scalable for their developers to be hand-coding simple HTML5 designs. 

The Creative Director was frustrated that his team couldn’t turn around their work fast enough without going through the technical team. There simply weren’t enough resources available to keep up with demand.

Not to mention their team was spread across the country, causing a communication disconnect and slow production times. 

The Technology Director was frustrated that his team didn’t have the time or resources to engage in complex projects, and with more clients requesting personalized variations, their workload was always growing. 

The conversation eventually turned to the reason we set-up this meeting. 

How much of the overall work could be streamlined so that the non-technical creative team members could create HTML5 designs?

We came down to an 85/15 percent split. 

Both the Creative Director and Technology Director agreed that 85% of their HTML5 development work could be switched to a platform and streamlined, allowing/freeing up time for creative team members to create HTML5 designs.

The Creative Director was satisfied because he could enable creative and production team members to create HTML5, animated designs. 

The Technology Director was satisfied because he could engage his team with complex projects and keep them highly motivated.

It’s similar to the 80/20 rule — you just need to find how to leverage it.

If this hit a pain point for you let me know. I continually work with teams to solve these types of problems. Contact me at marty@flexitive.com.