Lessons in Partnership
Best Practices for Collaborating with Other Studios
“Should you always give everything you do your full effort?”
The question hung heavy in the air. It felt like a trap. It had to be. If we said no, he might think we were lazy. If we said yes, he might think we were stupid. So instead we sat there in a heavy awkward silence. That is until my classmate Chris raised his hand timidly and squeaked out a tentative “yeeesss?” Our high school Econ class compatriots let out a collective sigh of relief since Chris had fallen on the sword for us.
“Absolutely incorrect. You can’t do it all. And if you try, you’re not going to be good at anything.”
Our teacher marched back to the board and wrote in large, sweeping letters:
Absolute and Comparative Advantage
Many years later, as I think about how we do things at Matter Supply, I am reminded of my high school teacher’s comment. One of the most important takeaways for me was that in business, comparative advantage only works when companies focus on what they do best. For everything else, it’s a good idea to find a partner.
Why partner?
Outsourcing can make sense when it comes to things like bookkeeping and payroll, but it makes less sense when it’s tied to project work. When we come across a project that has a large content marketing piece or one where it would benefit from luxe brand design, we look to our network of partners to join us. Those activities are just not our sweet spot, but it doesn’t mean we can’t help.
That concept is one of the many reasons that we believe so strongly in collaboration with other studios. Besides a chance to work with some of our friends, it allows us to focus on our core offering and to come together with different collaborators to take on challenges neither of us would have been able to do on our own. We love that. Our clients also love knowing that the combined team is made up of experts in each of their respective disciplines. They aren’t paying for the substantial overhead often associated with large agencies, but still get all the benefits.
After years of experimenting with collaborations and partnerships, we wanted to share some of what we’ve learned about partnering the right way. These are things we’ve learned by trial and error. While we haven’t always nailed it, we’ve learned some valuable lessons about how to do it right.
Develop rapport
Collaborations are often the result of existing relationships. When we are in the same general area as our partners, we make an initial effort to grab beers or coffee and put discussions about work as a low priority item on the agenda. Building a personal relationship is essential. We make a sincere effort to learn about our partners histories — how they got to where they are. People enjoy working with people they can connect with. It makes everything easier.
As projects advance, we make sure to start meetings with a bit of banter. We also encourage our team to do this in one on one meetings. While these steps can seem trivial and are easy to skip when work is overwhelming, putting attention on building the personal relationship pays major dividends in the long run.
Discuss and agree on process before hand
When people start a new job it takes a while to feel part of the culture and to effectively navigate the way things are done. Research suggests this process can take months or even years.
This adjustment period also exists when we form new partnerships and collaborations. Too often we don’t have the chance to immerse ourselves in each other’s cultures. Projects get going and we just have to adjust in flight. When projects are especially difficult, partnerships that haven’t invested in a common mutual culture often revert to each teams familiar way of operating. Building a new collaborative culture before work begins is essential. By discussing our philosophical and tactical approaches prior to the start of projects, we can better understand why we each approach things the way we do. We take the time to determine which processes are critical to the success of the collaboration. Where critical differences exist, it is important to decide on operating procedures in advance of the start of a project. We debate Scrum vs Kanban, full team daily stand ups vs discipline focused meetings, having a single point of contact for the client vs. a leadership committee style interaction, single invoice vs. separate invoices, and so on. We’ve found that things run smoothly when we make a plan and stick to it. By doing this ahead of time, we can avoid misunderstandings that are likely to occur when we’re under the gun to deliver work.
Remember the human side
People’s actions aren’t always going to make sense when seen from the outside. When things get tough we try to remember that people are generally doing their best and have good intentions. No one (we’ve ever worked with) sets out to sabotage a project. People are typically giving their best effort and do things the way they do based on their experience. When we see something that doesn’t quite make sense, we try to come from a place of curiosity, asking about the approach rather than criticizing it. By assuming the best and finding solutions together, we are able to learn from each other and move through the rough patches quickly.
Establish point people
If it’s everyone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s. Establishing point people to oversee specific areas of the project should happen before things kick off. In a collaboration it is likely that functional areas will span more than one organization. While this cuts against traditional internal management structures, projects need clear leaders that manage the team across organizations. The best people on both teams need to work closely with the point people to see the work through.
Work in integrated teams
Working in integrated teams is one of the most important things we’ve found to guarantee success both during and after the project. We prefer one team-wide stand up that includes all the right people from the participating studios in the collaboration. We need people from each organization, from a variety of roles, to work together often.
The goal here goes beyond building rapport to making sure that institutional knowledge is shared across studios and with the client. After a project concludes, if the client were to lose the knowledge of what was decided and why, the product we created together will suffer from things such as scope creep, feature creep, or maintenance issues. Because no one likes creating or reading documentation, we try to avoid creating documentation that doesn’t serve multiple purposes. Knowledge capture focuses on critical project elements that are used over and over for on-boarding or decision making. This means when we are done, knowledge is preserved and the work can move forward.
Frequent leadership meetings
Our most successful partnerships have occurred when each studio’s leadership has frequent, scheduled interactions. This allows us to review schedules, define responsibilities, go over specific processes, and get a head of potential problems. We also use these sessions as an opportunity to learn from each other.
Have a path for escalation
There are times, however, when despite our best efforts, a part of the project looks like it might be at risk. When this happens, it’s important to voice any concerns and work quickly to find a resolution. When at an impasse, it’s critical to have an escalation path for honest conversation between studio leaders. Leadership can go back to their respective teams with a new solution. This allows people to depersonalize conflict and focus on what works. While we’ve rarely had to use these escalation paths, it is a relief just to know they are available. When we have had to use them, they’ve helped us to gain insight into each other’s positions, to see alternative approaches, and have allowed the work to continue.
Don’t throw it over the wall
The downsides of a waterfall approach to development have been well documented. It’s surprising then that some people still feel like it’s acceptable to just throw a file up on dropbox, shoot out the link, and hope the rest of the team executes their vision correctly.
In instances where more collaborative approaches are out of reach due to distance, timezone, or allocation, we’ve found it best to provide an overview of the intent, outcome, and potential issues with the deliverable in its current state. Emails can get lost or overlooked, so we find it’s best that everyone is in regular communication, using tools such as a common Slack channel.
We also try to carve out times where a few members of each team can get together for feedback and polish sessions throughout the process. These can be supplemented with notes in Zeplin or Invision for design feedback, comments in git code reviews, or even threads in our project management tools or project wiki’s for broader product related matters. Distance and time are not excuses for not collaborating. When we started Matter Supply, we were in Portland and Medellin at the same time. We knew we’d have to find ways to collaborate consistently and share information with the full team. These tools and activities have made that possible.
Share your secrets
One of the big lessons that we’ve learned over the years is that ideas are easy –it’s the execution that’s difficult.
When partnering with another studio, it can be easy to play your cards close to the vest. There’s a nagging fear that maybe they’ll steal the client or copy an internal practice. In reality, we’ve found that exactly zero of our partners have ever done that.
By sharing our frameworks for approaching strategy, product design, technology, and delivery, we’ve found that partners have been willing to do the same. This has led to more opportunities to work together.
Share the credit
We rarely ask our partners to white label. In fact, we do our very best to avoid projects where we’d have to ask. By going in together with our partners to the client and being proud of our collaboration, we demonstrate that we are aware of the things we do best and that we know when to ask for help. Our clients have told us that our willingness to do this gives them confidence that if we say we can do something, it’s going to be top notch. It also means that if we say that we can’t do something we’re able to bring a partner to the table who can.
Celebrate victories together
This one is our favorite. We love launch days and the celebrations that accompany them. Months of hard work culminate not only in putting something new into the world but also give us a change to celebrate the partnership. It’s important to realize how far we’ve come together. It’s important to take the time to savor the achievement together.
Take a look back
No project is going to go perfectly. It’s important to take time to sit down in the days after celebrating a victory to talk about what we learned, what went well, what didn’t, and potential ways we might do it differently in the future. We’ve found it’s also useful to talk about opportunities for further collaboration so you can put those learnings to use. We review one another’s sales funnels and look at projects where we can provide advice or expertise that might help close the deal. But most importantly, we make sure we are having fun.
By treating partnerships with trust, prioritizing learning, and collaboratively building cultures and processes, we have been able to create meaningful relationships that help us expand our capabilities and deliver great work to our clients.
Matter Supply Co (formerly Pacific by Northwest) is dedicated to the craft of creating purposeful products and experiences that matter. Say hello next time you’re in Portland, OR or Medellin, Colombia or find us on LinkedIn. Some of our favorite partners and collaborators are: Duane King, OMFGCo, Nelson Cash, BMW Designworks, Enjoy the Weather, and maybe even you!
