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

Hi.

hashtag: #4AsLeanPlanning

@farrahbostic

Stuff I’ve done.ads

campaignswebsitesgames

strategiesbusinessesproducts

mediaeven a little code

and an absurd number of decks

What I do now is design digital things for clients...

that are increasingly centered on mobile & social

experiences.

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?

So what’s all this about Lean &

startups?

“Lean” is hot right now

http://theleanstartup.com/

It’s a reaction to waste, superstition,

and bias.

Requirements

Design

Implementation

Testing

Maintenance

The traditional software

waterfall model

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

The results for start-ups:

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

Google #Firestarters:

Agile Planning

Do Agencies Need to Think Like Software

Companies?

Let the stealing begin...

Fact: It’s easy to talk about “lean”.

It’s hard to be Lean.

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

So, where are the Lean agencies?

http://theleanstartup.com/

Agencies aren’t built to be Lean.

Ad people still idolize this

douchebag - the creative genius

& guru.

All agencies seem lean in a pitch.

http://rpminsights.blogspot.com/2010/04/our-creative-department.html

But then...

MediaProduction

Planning & Creative

Creative Testing

Account Service

Client RFP

Our business: Ads.

Commissioned by clients.

Designed by agencies.

Executed by vendors.

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

We think advertising is complicated

Clients Consumers

Ad Agencies Media

Agencies

Production Houses

Publishers

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

But really, business is complicated

Businesses Growth

Consumers

CompetitorsPartners

Shareholders

Regulators

Media

A little story...“Is it the bits?”

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.

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.

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

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).

“Thanks, but we just wanted to know if it was

the bits.”

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

So - what does it really mean to think

like a startup?

http://anjalir.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/sxsw-in-retrospect-the-last-of-the-launch-and-leave-ems/

“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

We have an ownership problem.The client’s boss owns the business.

The client owns the brand. Agencies own... advertising.

Our product is campaigns

Our economic buyer is the client.

Our end user is the audience.

We have to design for both.

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?’

Client Brief

Research

Creative Brief

Creative Development

Production

Media!

Client Brief

Research

Creative Brief

Creative Development

Production

Media!

The creative brief is a

by-product of this process.

Let’s idolize this TV douchebag genius instead.

The client brief is just one input to campaign model

seeking. It’s not the

“truth”.

Prototyping. Testing.

Discovery.

“Existing companies execute business models, while startups search for a business model.”— Steve Blank

What start-ups focus on:

Learning.Understanding.

Empathy.

What that means for us...

How to do Customer Discovery

(for planners)With thanks to Steve Blank

5 steps

Step 0

Develop a vision.

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

“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’...

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?

Step 1

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.

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.

http://thestartuptoolkit.com/http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/

Our client’s customers, prospects, and their influencers or gatekeepers

Solving a problem

Satisfying a need

Time, place & tone

Interactions & touch-points

Paid, earned & owned media

Distribution & sales

Branded experiences & utilities

People

Software & APIs

The client’s product or brand equity

Freelancers

Production Houses

Media publishers

Clients

Pass-through costs

Salaries & operating expenses

Client pays for strategy, development, implementation, media/hosting, testing and iteration

What if you could invent new revenue streams for your agency or client?

Step 2

Get out of the building.

Talk to people.

Not a lot. 5-10.

Not in a facility.

Not through a recruiter.

Not the perfect ‘respondent.’

This ain’t market research, so we don’t have to be

science-y.

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.

Prepare to be wrong

Step 3

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?

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?

Step 4

Repeat.

Build

Measure

Learn

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.”

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.

How do planners make stuff?

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.

Why prototype?

Because, otherwise, we’re still just guessing.

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...

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.

A note on pivots

Lean Pirates & Agile Ninjas talk

about ‘pivoting’ a lot

Pivoting isn’t a goal.

It’s a necessity.

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

And you make the intuitive leap to a better one.

Where does this intuition come

from?

Empathy & Discovery.

Build

Measure

Learn

Mahalo.