Working Effectively with Digital Agencies

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The Innovation and Digital Accelerator Programme — developed by CAST as part of Sport England’s B2022 Fund — is supporting National Governing Bodies (NGBs) across England to harness the power of digital, to help more people from more communities access and enjoy sport.

Last week a group of NGBs participating in the programme attended a masterclass delivered by CAST on Working Effectively with Digital Agencies. I had the pleasure of co-hosting the session with my fellow Programme Lead Ellen Smyth. In this masterclass we:

• Explored the challenges and benefits of working with digital agencies
• Provided some top tips and practical advice on choosing a digital agency
• Discussed the important conversations that should be had at the beginning of the partnership
• Explored best practice in terms of rituals and routines when working with agencies

At the start of the masterclass NGBs had the opportunity to discuss their experiences working with agencies. We then covered some of the challenges that can arise, with a particular focus on the procurement stage. We agreed that good digital work is impossible without an excellent relationship as it’s a collaborative process that requires trust and managed expectations — and discussed how a traditional procurement approach (which can sometimes lean towards being opaque and unequal) can result in problems later down the line. In reality the partnership starts from the onset at the procurement stage and not once the contract has been signed.

We covered how to mitigate against some of these challenges and avoid potential issues arising at the procurement stage and beyond, focusing specifically on the following three steps:

1. Writing a good brief
2. Shortlisting
3. Taking a “Try before you buy” approach when selecting an agency.

NGBs were then offered a demo of Dovetail, an online directory of digital agencies which can support charities and social impact organisations to find a digital partner, providing free tools and resources to write a brief and shortlist agencies.

In the second half of the masterclass NGBs went into breakout rooms where they discussed the following questions:

• What do you need in order to have a productive and effective relationship with a digital agency?
• What questions would you ask to help improve how you work together?

NGBs talked about the importance of having clear goals and expectations from the start. One of the key areas of focus was getting to know the team and having clarity about working practices and methods of communication.

We then explored five easy ways to get started:

1. Be curious about the team:

• Start by understanding who is on the project team, what their role and responsibilities are, and what their work pattern is.
• Consider how you want to work together. How often will you communicate? How? E.g. Slack/video calls/email?
• Spend some time learning about each other’s team values, workflow and decision making process. It will help you work better together.
• Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. Some examples are: Is there anything they foresee that might impact their ability to deliver the work? What is the sign off process? Who is responsible for recruiting ‘users’ for interviews and securing consent for use of their data?

2. Be present:

• Build in enough time to fully engage with the agency and think about how to embed and use the outputs
• Engage with wire frames, user stories and mock ups. Wireframes may be abstract but — as SIDE Labs’ Andy Bell wrote in his piece on working with agencies, see it as an architect sending you building plans. Sit down, review, discuss and fully understand before saying yes
• Spend time asking clarifying questions and thinking through the impact. What testing will be performed within the contracted period? What are the differences between what is in a tender document and what is in a contract?

3. Experiment with rituals and routine:

• Understand how the agency works. What rituals and routines do you and they need to work effectively together?
• Agree a regular slot time to meet, this could be a short ‘standup’, 15–30 minutes once a day/week/fortnight to update each other on what’s progressing and where there are blockers.
• Consider the aims and format of different meetings e.g. how and when will you discuss the budget, provide feedback, troubleshoot
• Consider how working asynchronously could support your project. What tools will be used for project management? Is there any training on tools? Explore how tools such as Trello, Asana or Slack could support your project

4. Reflect and learn:

• Take the time to reflect on what went well, what could have been improved and what you would change in the future.
• Sit down with your digital partner and hold a retrospective. It’s also a good idea to capture these learnings as you go, perhaps in an Excel / Google spreadsheet or a project management tool such as Asana or Trello.

5. Work in the open:

• Start to try and shift the culture by sharing internally first — e.g. make (non-confidential) files open and get into the habit of sharing in any internal newsletters and meetings
• Consider sharing your brief with other NGBs and making use of peer support sessions to practise open working
• Share recommendations for agencies, how to approach working with them, what helped you, what do you wish you knew before you started?

We ended the session asking NGBs to provide a one word or one sentence to the question

“How do you now feel about working with agencies?” Here was some of the feedback we received:

“Success is down to relationships”

“Confidence that we’re on the right track”

“Supportive — we now have tools that will help us work with agencies”

“(I have) more clarity on what it involves and how to approach an agency”

“I will use retros going forward”

If you want to find out more about the masterclass you can find the slide deck here.