January 28, 2025 • 41 mins
We’ve all had those moments, we land that huge new client – first comes the elation for winning the mandate that will transform our fortunes, and then the mild panic at how we’re going to deliver.
There’s also times when what we do is simply just not that well understood across the organization – there might only be one internal expert, which creates a significant amount of risk for the business if they were to leave.
That’s where assessing – and improving – your business capability maturity becomes critical.
The good news? A business capability maturity model gives you a steer on how you can go from ‘figuring it out’, to something that’s a solid part of your agency’s remit and expertise, then to true innovation – through the prism of people, process, technology and information.
In this episode, we’re chatting with Mike Della Porta – an award-winning tech and operations leader who’s been a COO, CTO, and CIO at one of the top independent marketing agencies in the US. Mike shares practical advice and lessons for agencies looking to scale sustainably.
Here’s what we dive into:
- What each stage of business capability maturity looks like and what to consider at each
- Using tech and tools to scale smarter
- How to get buy-in from your leadership team if they don’t understand the value of ops
- How ops roles can become billable and provide value to clients
Follow Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-della-porta/
Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/
Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter.
This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Harv Nagra (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Handbook, the agency
(00:02):
operations podcast.
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Now let's get to the episode.
(01:38):
Hi all, welcome back to thepodcast.
If you're a regular listener,you'll know that I often talk
about business maturity, how anagency evolves and optimizes its
operations.
I find business maturity models,an incredibly useful tool to
understand where you're at todayand what you can aim for.
But there's another perspectiveon maturity, the maturity of
(01:58):
your agency's capabilities, whatyou produce and deliver.
This is about the how, how youragency produces its outputs
through the lens of its people,processes, technology, and the
use of information.
The journey of maturity, whetherit's operational or capability
focused, is never really over.
(02:18):
There's always something new tooptimize, refine, or improve.
That's why I'm so excited abouttoday's guest, Mike Della Porta.
Mike is an award winningtechnology and operations leader
who thrives on solving bigoperational challenges.
As the former CTO, COO, and CIOat one of the leading
independent marketing agenciesin the US.
(02:41):
Mike led a transformation of theagency's capabilities to
innovate and scale, drivingrecord financial success.
With 20 years of experience,Mike founded Della Porta
Consulting to help agenciesscale sustainably while driving
profitability and growth.
He also helped launch anoperations program at one of the
leading agency networks in theStates, the 4As, which we'll be
(03:04):
diving into today.
Let's see what we can learn fromMike.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Mike Della Porta (03:12):
Thanks for having me.
Harv Nagra (03:13):
Let's start with your background in the agency
and tech space.
Could you share a bit about yourjourney with our listeners?
Mike Della Porta (03:19):
Sure.
I am a grizzled 20 year veteranof the agency world.
18 of those 20 years was withone of the leading independent
agencies in the States, uh,predominantly focused on media,
but we, we did have, a rather,large creative practice that
focused on a lot of contentmarketing.
But my background is mostly in,in media.
And, when I started, we wereabout 40 people and toward the
(03:42):
tail end of my career, we wereknocking on 300 folks.
So we
Harv Nagra (03:45):
Oh, wow.
Mike Della Porta (03:47):
growth story that really hockey sticked in
the last few years.
And during that period of time.
I had a chance to really growwith the organization.
So I started more on the sort ofhybrid role of account
management and media planningand buying where, you know, at a
40 person shop, everybody had todo everything.
So I got a chance to wear all ofthose hats, did my own account
(04:07):
management and my own insertionorders and
Harv Nagra (04:10):
Amazing.
Mike Della Porta (04:11):
to, you know, figure out those contracts and
then billing and reconciliation.
So a little bit of everythingalong the way.
as we started to grow, I had theopportunity to really pursue my
passions, which was more on theoperations and business
intelligence side of things, thetechnology side of things, and
help the organization reallydevelop new capabilities and
scale over the last couple ofyears.
Harv Nagra (04:33):
A lot of those areas that you specialize in, we share
very common interests in thosethings.
When I first met you, I wasreally excited to chat with you
and have you on the podcast sowe could compare notes and talk
about some of this stuff.
So that's really fantastic.
You've done some work with the4A's as well, which is a huge
network in the US.
For those that aren't familiar,can you tell us a bit about who
(04:54):
the 4A's are and what they do?
And talk about some of the workthat you've done with them.
Mike Della Porta (04:58):
Yeah of course, I love the 4A's.
So for those that don't know,the 4A's is basically, in the
States, it's the agency tradeassociation.
It's a wonderful group of peopleand experts that are there to
support agencies of alldifferent sizes and shapes, you
know, everything from holdingcompanies to the independence
and as a newly minted chiefoperating officer, I had
(05:18):
approached the 4A's and wasasking a few questions around,
generally where are my people,you know, I'm, I'm focused on
business intelligence andtechnology stuff and operations
stuff.
And, you know, we're looking atproject management systems.
I'm like, are there, are therepeers that I can speak with, you
know, at other agencies, andthere was some really wonderful
curriculum and opportunities atthe executive level for CEOs and
(05:42):
CFOs, but maybe not so much forfolks like me, chief operating
officers, where I always jokethe, the O in COO is other,
right?
It really varies from one agencyto another.
So, we had talked in, the 4A's,Molly Rosen in particular, Chick
Fox, Grover, Sal Conti, a fewothers had really supported me
and, and hooked me up with awonderful tag team partner,
(06:05):
Kiran Lenz.
That, the two of us had cofounded and co chaired, what we
call it is the, agencyoperations business
transformation round table, AOBTfor short,
Harv Nagra (06:15):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (06:16):
the idea was bringing together, COO, CIO,
CTOs, you know, folks thatreally focused on that tech and
operation space for agencies ofall ilks and bringing them
together and really talkingshop.
And it was such a wonderfulexperience in the sense that
everyone was so willing to shareand we really built a fantastic
community.
(06:36):
So it quickly became the largestround table at the 4A's over the
course of maybe 12, 18 months.
Harv Nagra (06:42):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (06:42):
we drafted a white paper together for the
industry.
Harv Nagra (06:46):
Hmm.
Mike Della Porta (06:46):
like a best practice and, and sort of guide
for agencies, again, of allsizes to help navigate the
various, uh, situations,scenarios, things that agencies
were running into.
Harv Nagra (06:58):
Amazing.
That is so impressive.
And I was having a peek at that,the content sounds super
relevant and really a playbookthat you can reference in terms
of how, how to go through someof this stuff.
You do have to be a member toaccess that, but, you can find
out more information about thaton the 4A's website.
but it's interesting you said,where are my people, and that's
(07:18):
something you were kind ofmissing.
I'm based in the UK, as youknow, and I've seen the
conversation about agencyoperations grow incredibly,
where it was kind of the thingthat people didn't really talk
about and you felt very isolatedand that has changed a lot over
the past couple of years.
So I'm just wondering, how doyou feel things are in that
space in the States?
(07:39):
Are there more conversationshappening as well?
Is it being taken more seriouslyor do you think there's still a
ways to go?
Mike Della Porta (07:44):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, I certainly there's,there's still a ways to go, but
I think, I think the biggestchange or that the catalyst for
a lot of this is, you know,agency operations, no matter how
you define it was, was alwayssort of more in the background,
right?
These are sort of the unsungheroes, the work that kind of
happens in, in the seams.
It's sort of invisible in a lotof ways, but these are the folks
that you know, really help theagency.
(08:06):
Whether it's running the agency,the operations of the agency, or
delivering services to clients.
These are the people that kindof act as the glue.
They, they make everything go.
And I think what's happeningover the course of time and
technology is really thecatalyst, is that is things are
getting more complicated andclients have a lot more
expectations around ROI andtransparency and security and
(08:30):
other capabilities that agenciesare really starting to get into.
Ops folks are graduating frombeing more behind the scenes and
invisible to being billable.
And so we're moving these, theseprofessionals these sort of
Swiss army knife type folks thatcan do a lot of different
things.
We're moving them forward In theprocess and engaging with
clients.
(08:50):
And I think the agencies thatare doing that proactively are
going to benefit greatly byintroducing the clients to these
types of professionals and theycan really influence the quality
of the work and the ideas andthe innovation upfront, as
opposed to maybe historically,really just being focused on
doing things better, faster,smarter, or fixing things.
Harv Nagra (09:12):
I really love that, Mike.
And I, I haven't really spoke toanyone that's put it that way in
terms of these roles becomingbillable, which I think is music
to the ears of any kind of MD orCEO of an agency,
Mike Della Porta (09:23):
for sure.
Harv Nagra (09:24):
that is really interesting, but you're right.
The more complex things get andthe more technology comes into
play.
And that's one of the, Oneaspect of the role of an
operations director, right?
But we've often had to justapply that behind the scenes and
in house.
So yeah, I can see the value ofthat, when you lend out that
kind of expertise to a client.
Mike Della Porta (09:43):
A 100%.
And it’s tricky, right, becausewhether you’re more gearing
towards the analytics side, thecreative side, the media side,
typically agencies are hiredfor, you know, their core
competencies, but, but everyagency is stretching in these
different directions, and again,I think the catalyst is largely
driven by a technology and, youknow, whether it's technology
(10:03):
and software development, AI,things that would have been done
behind the scenes to just makethings go, now these are
becoming capabilities andprojects that clients are
interested in and they could andshould be billable.
Harv Nagra (10:17):
Very, very interesting.
so one of the things that we'retalking about today is business
maturity.
to, to start, could you maybetell us what a business
capability maturity model is foranyone that's not familiar?
Mike Della Porta (10:30):
Sure.
It's, it's a really wonderfultool that acts as a framework
for the organization to assesswhat your capabilities are.
So these are things that, to putit in simplest terms, these are
things that you do.
So how good are we at doing thethings that we're hired for or
doing the things that we need todo in order to run a business
and agency.
It's a great framework to geteverybody around a document
(10:53):
where there's common language,common definitions of what good
looks like, and how do wecontinue to improve over the
course of time.
Harv Nagra (11:01):
So, tell us a bit more about what that looks like
the number of stages maybe, andthe dimensions that come into
play.
Mike Della Porta (11:08):
Yeah.
So typically, um, you know, andthere are all kinds of different
versions of this, but what theyall tend to have in common is
it's a five point scale.
One being the lowest, five beingthe highest, and usually what
you're looking for is thisgraduation from level one to two
to three all the way up to fivein some cases, the idea is that
you're evaluating yourcapabilities through a common
(11:28):
set of definitions andattributes criteria, and you
look at these capabilitiesthrough the prism of people,
process, technology andinformation.
And so it's a really, again,nice way for a leadership team,
or those that are in charge ofdepartments, divisions,
capabilities, to assess howthey're doing and really
consider what a roadmap lookslike and being clear about what
(11:51):
your ambition is at the in thein the grand scheme of things,
right?
It doesn't make sense to be arockstar at everything.
It's actually cost prohibitiveto do that in a lot of cases,
but where do you really want toplace your bets in terms of
investment and resources toreally shine on the things that
your agency needs to stand outfor the most hmm.
(12:12):
and then hedge a little bit onthe other things that maybe
aren't as important or would becharacterized as more kind of
supportive in nature.
Harv Nagra (12:19):
And really gives you a steer on kind of the gaps that
are causing you the biggest,biggest issues as well.
So you can start to unblock Soin terms of kind of assessing
yourself, and we'll be goinginto each of the stages in a
little bit more detail, so youcan walk us through and
visualize what that looks like.
Okay.
But in terms of assessing yourcapabilities against these, is
there a formal way you recommenddoing it?
Mike Della Porta (12:40):
I mean, you know, so it depends, I suppose,
on the size and the scope ofwhat you're trying to
accomplish.
There's certainly softwareplatforms out and there are
companies and consultants thatfocus on this specifically.
I was a, I was very lucky to bea customer of Gartner for a long
time.
So Gartner, in my view, is awonderful organization that
really helps with this sort ofthing.
(13:01):
But if you don't have theability to take advantage of
those types of resources, reallycan put this together in
something that amounts to likeExcel or a deck.
Just some basic tool that getsthe information down on paper
recorded so that it's shareableand knowable and you can get
your leadership team around itand revisit it, you know, maybe
on a quarterly basis.
Harv Nagra (13:22):
So Mike, even if someone isn't familiar with the
idea of a capability maturitymodel, their business might get
to a point where they stillrecognize there's a need to
change I'm sure you can think ofsome examples, what kinds of
things do you think lead tothose realizations that we need
to mature?
Mike Della Porta (13:37):
Sure.
So I think two of the classicsfor any agency is, We've just
won a monster new client.
We're so excited, but Oh mygoodness, our processes and our
tech, maybe our people, it allneeds to level up in order to
capitalize on the opportunityand deliver on the promise that
we just made, right.
So it's not that anything was,was necessarily wrong.
(14:00):
It's just not big enough or, or,or scalable enough.
it doesn't have the kind ofagility that you need to take on
that new big piece of business.
The other one that tends to popup and, you know, the starts to
dovetail into, you know, whereyou start on a capability model
typically is on that level oneyou might have somebody that's
just an absolute rock star atwhat they're performing, but
(14:22):
because they're the only personthat knows how to do that thing,
they're sick, if they go onvacation, if they leave the
organization, you have that sortof hit by a bus situation.
In other words, there's noredundancy in place.
So if that person isn't theredoing their thing, everything
stops.
And so again, if they're awesomeat what they're doing and
they're, but they're the onlyperson that knows what they're
(14:43):
doing, congratulations, you're aLevel 1 on the capability model.
And one of the things that youneed to work on is, that buddy
system, getting the tag team inplace, building the redundancy,
starting to get stuff down onpaper so that it's trainable.
And you can, you can work onthat within the organization so
that if and when that personisn't around anymore, for
whatever reason, you havesomebody else that can slide
(15:05):
right in.
Harv Nagra (15:05):
I had a client at one point that would constantly
bring up the example of gettinghit by a bus, that so and so is
the only person in yourorganization that controlling
this, you need to make surewe're going to be okay if
something goes wrong.
But yeah.
Mike Della Porta (15:18):
um, you know, another one I see all the time
and, and, you know, for folksthat have been on the, the
operation side of things, mostof the time when I got the phone
call, it's because it wassomething new that we had never
done before.
And so we needed to figure itout.
Right.
It was maybe something brand newthat just came up and it was
this amazing opportunity, ormaybe it was like an extension
and evolution of something thatwe were already doing,
Harv Nagra (15:40):
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (15:40):
to harden it.
We needed to scale it.
And so, you know, that wastypically one of the times I
would get the phone call.
The other time was whensomething needed to be fixed, it
was broken, or it was somethingthat wasn't as good as it could
be.
And so how do we, how do wefocus on improving it?
And so, you know, a lot of timesyou might have somebody that's a
practitioner of a certaincapability or function, or maybe
(16:01):
even a service that you'redeveloping for your client.
And in the agency world, youknow, there's those old adages
of a fake it till you make it,
Harv Nagra (16:09):
hmm.
Mike Della Porta (16:10):
you know, maybe you have that one person
that's doing their thing, butnow the question comes up, well,
we're doing this for onecustomer.
How do we do it for twocustomers?
How do we do it for threecustomers?
And when that moment happens.
You kind of have to step backand say, okay, what is it about
what this person is doing orthis combination of people,
process and tech that we canreplicate and scale and deliver
(16:33):
on the promise for multipleclients and take advantage of
that opportunity.
Harv Nagra (16:36):
100%.
We're going to be talking about,well, we're going to start by
talking through the stages, butwe're going to come back to this
point as well.
so why don't we get into thosestages?
I mean, the, the first two,maybe not particularly mature.
How do you differentiate betweenthose two?
Mike Della Porta (16:54):
Yeah, so, I mean, different words for level
1 and level 2, but, you know,typically level 1 is'initial'.
Harv Nagra (17:01):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (17:01):
You're, you're either starting out, you've
never done it before and you'restarting it, or it's perhaps
something that you've been doingfor a while, and it hasn't
received the kind of time andattention or maybe the
investment.
Required in order to do itconsistently.
Right?
So the way that this tends tofeel when these activities are
happening at a level 1 is it'skind of confusing.
(17:22):
It's maybe a little bit messy.
Firefighting comes to mind,right?
It's very ad hoc is Yeah.
sort of the point.
Right?
And so.
Some activities make sense forthat.
Maybe they happen every once ina while, but if it's something
that you really need to buildout and scale, that's when you
need to start looking at acapability model and saying,
okay, what are the things thatwe need to change again, through
(17:43):
the prism of people, process,talking information to, to start
to mature this, so moving upfrom initial to level two, which
would be characterized as'managed'.
Harv Nagra (17:53):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (17:54):
That starts to feel like you have the buddy
system in place.
You have more than one personthat can perform these things.
It's repeatable, there's sharedknowledge maybe within a team or
a department where they can backeach other up.
And the point there is thatrather than it being really ad
hoc, and there's not a lot ofdefinition around, like, what
good looks like, in level two,starts to take shape and you can
(18:15):
start to say, hey, I know thatwe did this thing really well
and we can train it up and wecan start to do it on a regular
basis.
Harv Nagra (18:22):
Hmm,
Mike Della Porta (18:22):
or you know another common scenario is, it's
sort of a decision aroundwhether or not to outsource.
Harv Nagra (18:29):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (18:29):
Maybe this is something that, early on,
because it was project based,you're outsourcing to a trusted
partner.
And over the course of time,because the work is more
consistent and repeatable.
You decide to insource it, ormaybe it's the opposite that
you're doing something in housebecause everybody has to do
everything.
And as you start to grow, youcan pick and choose your battles
in terms of what you'respecializing in, and maybe you
(18:51):
look at that work that's a bitmore commoditized and send it
off to an expert, a trustedpartner that can perform those
things, and you focus on reallywhat.
Set you apart from yourcompetition and what makes your
customers the happiest.
Harv Nagra (19:04):
Absolutely.
So, Mike, from there, we moveinto stage three.
Tell us what that is and whatthat looks like.
Mike Della Porta (19:12):
Sure.
So I, in my view, and especiallyin my experience, I think Stage
3 is generally what a lot oforganizations should be shooting
for,'roughly right'.
When you start talking aboutfours and fives and we'll, we'll
get there.
It starts to ratchet up with thecost and investment is there,
but for number 3, it's reallywhere the definition of good is
really well understood and youcan perform it.
(19:34):
It's really at the, thedepartment level, the division
level, multiple practitioners atthat point.
And to translate it, simply saidit becomes your bread and
butter.
Right.
These are the things that maybeyour agency is known for now.
what it feels like, it's, it'sroutine.
It's understood, because youhave that common definition of
what good looks like.
You can get a group of peopletogether and have a retro or a
(19:57):
post mortem and have a reallygreat conversation around, hey,
here's how we did, here, thenext time we do it, because we
know what's coming up.
Here are the things that we wantto change and improve.
So it really becomesinstitutionalized in terms of
knowledge at that point.
I think, once you're, onceyou're at that three level, or
you're shooting to be at thatthree level, that's where
technology and process reallybecomes important.
(20:19):
So what I, what I've seen in mycareer is a lot of things that
would be characterized as maybemanual in nature, things that
you've built and spreadsheets,this is the point where you're
probably in the market to lookat software to help digitize and
automate, or at least set thecircumstance, for, for that sort
of approach.
And so again, it's, it's sort ofa neat thing in the sense that
(20:41):
as you're building up towardsthe capability model and moving
up the levels, start almostcreating a requirements document
for, for what technology youmight be in the market for,
right?
You have your people in place,processes documented, the work
is getting out on time, on cost.
everybody is happy.
And now it's more a question of,well, how do we harden this?
(21:03):
How do we scale it even more?
That's usually the right momentto start thinking about
technology and what solutionsare out there.
Harv Nagra (21:10):
Mm hmm.
Thank you for that.
So we're, we're going to talkabout stage four and you also,
spoke about some of thefinancial investment that four
and five require, which I'mquite interested in hearing
about.
But first, maybe let's talkabout what goes into a level
four and, start there.
Mike Della Porta (21:27):
Yeah, so Level 4 really about feedback loops at
that point, right?
So you have a circumstance wherepeople and process are locked
down.
A lot of the work is gettingcaptured in software at that
point.
So you're creating and capturinginformation.
And so it creates thatcircumstance for more data
driven decision making.
whether that's people making thedecisions or you have software
(21:50):
and algorithms that are helpingto optimize those, those results
or processes for you, it'sreally about that measurement
and understanding that we have aprocess that's in control.
We know what the range is forlooking at what's good and we
can manage that to that effect.
And, I think it's, it's, it's,It makes sense for certain
things.
(22:10):
Level 4 makes sense foractivities or capabilities that
are more tech enabled from theget go.
So, you know, some of some ofthe capabilities I can think of
that really lend themselves tothat, certainly things related
to finance, cyber security onthe media side, programmatic and
platform driven media planningand buying.
There's so much technology atyour fingertips.
(22:30):
Um, for the folks that are handson keyboard there, they can take
advantage of a lot of thefunctionality that exists within
that software.
And deliver really outstandingresults for their clients.
But the biggest point there isthat the functionality exists.
You have to take advantage ofit.
Harv Nagra (22:46):
Excellent.
Okay.
So, um, level five What doesthis stage look like?
Mike Della Porta (22:51):
This is really about optimization and
innovation.
So your maturity has reached apoint where you have the data at
your fingertips and you've,you've more or less created that
culture of excellence.
So everything is firing on allcylinders You've moved You've
beyond improving the process.
You're actually innovating onthe process or innovating beyond
(23:13):
the process.
Harv Nagra (23:14):
Hmm.
Mike Della Porta (23:14):
So it's a really outstanding place to be
in the grand scheme, but again,it doesn't lend itself to
everything that an agency wouldbe doing.
Harv Nagra (23:21):
Hmm.
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (23:23):
That information and the people that
are in those seats interpretingthe information and making
decisions and ultimatelytinkering and innovating beyond
the process that that is a areally important place to be for
new capabilities and where maybethe puck is going.
Harv Nagra (23:40):
Hmm.
Excellent.
I really think That helps usvisualize how we can go from
Starting out with the new offercapability all the way to the
other end of the maturity scalewith a focus on innovation.
All right.
So we're going to switch gears alittle bit.
Given your background andexperience, I wanted to ask you
some broader questions.
So starting with, you know, youtalk about the importance of
tech and business transformationand the importance of optimizing
(24:03):
your tech stack.
Can you talk us through that alittle bit?
Why do you see that as animperative?
Mike Della Porta (24:10):
Sure.
I think, um, you know, dependingon the size of the organization
and how quickly you're growingagain, I go back to, it's not
necessarily fact that anythingis wrong or broken.
it's maybe just not flexible orscalable for what your growth
trajectory is.
Every agency knows a lot ofthings are born in spreadsheets
(24:30):
and sort of these manualactivities, and when you start
to grow and scale and you startto invest and you need more
people involved with it and youstart asking yourself questions
around, well, where's the singlesource of truth for this?
And how do I know the status ofthat?
That's where technology canreally shine.
And so one of my favoriteexamples is certainly project
(24:51):
management systems.
I've never met an, met an agencythat's been absolutely in love
with their project managementplatform.
so I, I don't believe that, youknow, that exists where there's
a silver bullet from a, from aPM perspective.
However, the agency is growing.
There are differentconsiderations for what you may
be in the market for.
And that's what I mean byevaluating your technology stack
(25:13):
every so often, or, or in mycase, I used to do it on a
scheduled basis.
regardless of what the growthtrajectory was, you know, the
growth would always pull things,but regardless of the growth, I
would always check in on an, onan annual semi annual basis to
make sure that everything was,Working the way that we needed
to.
And I spent a lot of time on theedges of where the work was, you
know,
Harv Nagra (25:32):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (25:33):
folks that were interacting with our
clients to really hear firsthandfrom their experience, what they
needed so that I could arm themwith the best tech.
And so they could deliver thebest service to our clients.
Harv Nagra (25:43):
That's really great advice.
You also talk about kind ofinaccurate reporting data silos
and endless spreadsheets, and Imean, a spreadsheet is a super
easy place to start.
So that's why we, I think alljust kind of gravitate to that
when we start doing anyplanning, but it does get really
messy and hard to stay on topof.
Mike Della Porta (26:01):
Agencies are, are, are interesting
organizations.
You know, I, I, I've worked onthe agency side for 20 years.
Harv Nagra (26:07):
yeah.
Mike Della Porta (26:08):
it's just so core to our DNA to be fast, to
be first.
there's,
Harv Nagra (26:12):
mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (26:13):
you know, I can think of times in my career
where I was kind of an, anadrenaline junkie, right?
Like I, I would love.
would always love to be wherethe action is, right?
Whether it was a firefighting orlike something new that we were
doing, but the point was is thatit was new.
It was exciting.
It was fast.
It was unpredictable.
That sort of
Harv Nagra (26:30):
Mm,
Mike Della Porta (26:31):
in the face of a lot of the discipline that you
need from a businessintelligence perspective to slow
down a little bit and adopt moreof a mindset of measure twice,
cut once, right?
So
Harv Nagra (26:43):
mm
Mike Della Porta (26:43):
there's this illusion that going fast somehow
saves you time when, in effect,it actually more often than not
causes the team to go back intime to fix and correct things
that they, they should havespent a little bit more time
focused on in the first place,right?
Or maybe partnering with ourclients, partnering with our
partners, getting the alignment,the stakeholder alignment up
(27:05):
front to really understand whatare we all trying to accomplish
together?
Where does this information comefrom?
we get it?
Do we trust it?
Like the lineage of informationis really important.
just simple things like namingconventions and versioning.
Are they attachments, are theyit up in the cloud?
Very, very tactical things that,that if you have a good handle
(27:26):
on can really be a lifesaver inthe grand scheme in terms of
accuracy and efficiency.
Harv Nagra (27:31):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (27:31):
a, from a data and analytics and BI
perspective.
So I like to work with teamswhere, you know, typically the,
the activities are very manualin nature.
There's a lot of spreadsheets.
And the first place I like tofocus on is really just what are
the needs?
What are those businessquestions?
Harv Nagra (27:50):
mm
Mike Della Porta (27:51):
everybody's
Harv Nagra (27:51):
mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (27:52):
on and developing something, you know,
almost a cousin to the businesscapability model is a maturity
framework, or I'm sorry, ameasurement framework rather
Harv Nagra (28:01):
Mm.
Mike Della Porta (28:02):
nails down.
What are those businessquestions?
What KPIs help us understand theanswers to those questions or
give us insight?
Where does the information comefrom and can we draw a straight
line across of those things?
All before pulling aspreadsheet, typing a number
into a piece of software.
Let's get that alignment firstto make sure that we're all on
(28:24):
the same page.
Harv Nagra (28:25):
Absolutely.
So Mike, when it comes toimproving ways of working,
sometimes I hear in house opspeople say that I get it and I
know this is important, but myMD isn't on board.
What would you, what would yousay to them in terms of advice?
Mm, mm,
Mike Della Porta (28:43):
You know, ops people are so great, they can do
so many different things and Ithink, you know, culturally
that's a really bigconsideration in the grand
scheme in terms of the approach.
So culturally, if operations isconsidered more kind of back
office behind the scenes, maybejust getting the phone call when
things are broken and need to befixed or sped up, knowing that
(29:06):
start point is important.
And so how do you how do youstart to reposition within that
circumstance?
It's understanding the valuethat you can create.
And most importantly, it's thevalue that your stakeholders are
yearning for.
So if you can understand whatthat is and how to speak that
language and then work with yourcolleagues and your stakeholders
(29:27):
and your leadership to help themunderstand how you can do that,
how you can add that value orcreate that value.
the most important part of, ofstarting that journey ops people
in my view, and I was guilty ofthis too.
We, we focus a little bit toomuch on how we need to focus on
why, and if we can do that andreally get to the heart of that,
(29:48):
then we have all kinds oftricks, all kinds of tech and
processes and methods and tools,all these things that we can
bring to bear.
creating that value,
Harv Nagra (29:58):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (29:59):
and getting into the seat of the
stakeholders criticallyimportant.
Harv Nagra (30:03):
hmm.
Absolutely.
So, Mike, another thing that Ihear ops people say is that they
might come into a level one orlevel two business and they end
up feeling really overwhelmedbecause there's so much to fix.
And it's like every problem I goto fix, I uncover five others.
What would you say to them?
Mike Della Porta (30:23):
Yeah.
Isn't that the truth?
Um, I think a good projectcharter can be an invaluable
tool in the grand scheme becauseyou're right.
Inevitably, you'll be sent outon a mission.
Harv Nagra (30:33):
Mm,
Mike Della Porta (30:33):
uh, doing your thing and you'll, you'll uncover
all kinds of interesting thingsalong the way.
And what I,
Harv Nagra (30:41):
mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (30:41):
told my, my teams is write that stuff down.
Let's report it up
Harv Nagra (30:46):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (30:47):
check in on that, but let's be careful not
to get derailed.
Right.
Harv Nagra (30:51):
Mm.
Mike Della Porta (30:51):
words, if it's not
Harv Nagra (30:52):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (30:53):
to the mission that we're on already, let's see
that one
Harv Nagra (30:56):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (30:57):
we have a backlog of things that, Oh, that
was interesting, or, Oh boy,this is going to come back to
haunt us in a little bit.
Let's circle back on that stuff
Harv Nagra (31:04):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (31:05):
the initial mission.
And I think that's importantbecause it can turn into.
You know, I always call theselike sort of Frankenstein
projects, right?
You start off with one thing andthen it just starts appending
all these different, uh, other,other sort of submissions in the
grand scheme.
And what ends up happening isyou never actually complete
anything.
Harv Nagra (31:23):
Yep.
Mike Della Porta (31:23):
then that
Harv Nagra (31:23):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (31:24):
uh, your ability and credibility with
your stakeholders to do thatnext thing.
Right.
So important to deliver on thatfirst promise, collect the
intelligence and, and the thingsthat you've uncovered.
And then we can, we can wrapthat up in a, in a new project
and set off on that.
Harv Nagra (31:44):
Really, really good advice.
The backlog.
I think focusing on the thingsthat are going to be a factor in
this project and then justputting the rest the backlog is
really, really good advice.
Mike Della Porta (31:53):
I mean, harv, another strategy, just building
on that quickly is a new opsperson being invited to the
party on a particular thing.
It can be overwhelming, um,identifying where the low
hanging fruit is.
Is really important, right?
So, you know, that adage of, youknow, let's not boil the ocean,
find something that you canreally knock down and create a
lot of value, build thestakeholder excitement, the
(32:17):
credibility and use that as thefoundation and the momentum to
do bigger things later on, Ithink is a really nice strategy.
I've seen that work quite a bit.
Harv Nagra (32:26):
Excellent.
Mike, last couple of questions.
Is there anything else you'd sayor advice you'd give to someone
in an Ops role that maybe wehaven't covered or do you think
we pretty well covered therange?
Mike Della Porta (32:38):
No, that's a, that's a great question.
And it's somewhat related.
I'm teaching businessintelligence at my alma mater,
the
Harv Nagra (32:44):
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (32:46):
I was talking about this with my students, I
think for ops people, forbusiness intelligence, people,
for anybody in that, in thatarena, the curiosity is so
important and collaboration andthe relationships.
the most important, the tools,the tech, as much as I love
technology and everything that'sout there and how fast it's
(33:07):
moving,
Harv Nagra (33:08):
Mm.
Mike Della Porta (33:09):
it's all incredibly exciting,
Harv Nagra (33:11):
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (33:12):
I'm just gonna continue to change and move, and
morph into all kinds of things.
So how we get the results thatwe're looking for is, is a
little less important than that,that why, and building the
relationships and understandingyour stakeholders.
So for those that are in in thearena or about to enter the
arena, I would ask them orencourage them to really focus
(33:34):
on the more the soft skills andthe people in the relationship.
And the tools and the solutionswill, will swiftly follow.
Harv Nagra (33:44):
hmm.
I like that.
Um, where, where do you thinkthe next couple of years is
going to take us in terms oflike the, the, the tech that we
use in agencies?
Mike Della Porta (33:54):
Oh boy.
I can answer that in two ways, Imean certainly everyone is
talking about AI and all itsdifferent flavors.
So, you know, on the media sidewhere everything is so tech
enabled and is, Throwing off somuch information.
I think there's a wonderfulopportunity there, to further,
further integrate AI and machinelearning.
(34:17):
It's, it's always been there.
It's always been in thesoftware.
That's sort of the funny thingin the grand scheme of things is
that, you know, the, the worldand the industry is talking
about AI and machine learning asif it's a new thing.
It's just, it's, I think it it'sbecome a bit more in the
forefront of, of.
The public in the grand scheme,where, you know, if you work in
ad tech, especially this is,this has been the case for
(34:38):
forever, practically.
Um, but with that being said, Ithink, I think the integration
into the workflow and takingadvantage of the functionality
is, is really the most importantthing.
And it's moving so quickly, it'smaking the time.
For those people that are handson keyboard to learn the new
bells and whistles and figureout where it applies for their
work.
So that's really important.
(34:58):
And then from a from an agencyperspective and enterprise
perspective, I think it's reallylooking at your operations staff
and your technologists, whetherthey're formally identified as
such or identifying those maybecitizen developers or those high
potentials.
And really arming those folkswith the, the circumstance and
(35:19):
the learning and development,the support really help them
realize their potential, becausethose folks are really going to
be the future leaders of yourorganization.
they're going to be the futurestrategists.
They're going to be the reasonthat your clients sign up with
you.
And so those people and makingsure that they're ready and that
they're visible and confidentand creating a lot of value.
where I would focus a lot oftime and energy.
Harv Nagra (35:41):
That is such an inspiring note to end on and,
and really gives us something tothink about.
Thank you very much for that.
so Mike, we're coming to the endof our discussion.
Can you tell us a bit about thekinds of businesses or agencies
that you support and what kindof work you do with them?
Mike Della Porta (35:58):
Sure.
I love working with agencies.
It's certainly my background.
I have a special place in myheart for agencies.
I'm also a Lean Six Sigmapractitioner.
So where I, where I love toengage with agencies, are sort
of in two circumstances.
Agencies that are looking togrow proactively or they found
themselves in receipt of, growthopportunities.
(36:19):
They won that next big client.
And in both cases, they'relooking to really harden their,
their processes and theirtechnologies.
So oftentimes it takes the shapeof, Hey, we have all of these
processes or we have thetechnology that we have.
can we, can we partner together?
Can you look at what we have andmake recommendations on.
(36:40):
scalable?
What's not?
If we're in the market for newtalent, new process, new
technology, how do wecharacterize what that is and
make sure that we're making theright choices?
Harv Nagra (36:51):
hmm.
Mike Della Porta (36:51):
And so not just helping with the evaluation
and recommendation along thoselines, but in many cases,
helping with the implementationas well.
Because that's really kind ofthe hardest part at the end of
the day is the changemanagement.
You've, you've bought a newsystem or you've brought on a
new team of people.
Everyone's excited for that newthing, that new opportunity, but
(37:13):
where the rubber really hits theroad is the implementation and
the, and the change management.
And that's something Ispecialize in.
Harv Nagra (37:19):
Excellent.
And do you kind of work acrossthe U S then or kind of closer?
Mike Della Porta (37:23):
do.
I'm based in Western New York,go Bills! but I work with
agencies across the country.
Harv Nagra (37:29):
Amazing.
And if anyone wants to go andlearn more about you, Mike,
where can they do that?
Mike Della Porta (37:35):
Sure.
I'm very active on LinkedIn, soyou can find me there, or, I
would love a visit at my websiteat dellaportaconsulting.Com.
Harv Nagra (37:42):
Thank you so much.
Mike, it's been a pleasure tohave you on the show.
So thank you so much for, forjoining us today.
Mike Della Porta (37:50):
Oh, thank you for the opportunity.
And I love that you're doingthis podcast and helping us
agency folks in operations, uh,get together, share best
practices and learn a littlebit.
Harv Nagra (38:00):
Thank you so much, Mike.
All right, everyone.
Welcome back.
That was a really interestingconversation.
I found myself in the pastdebating the methodologies we
followed to deliver certainoutputs, discussing how we could
simplify, standardize or speedup the process.
And I think Mike's examplesreally illustrated how you can
look at that step by step fromwhere you're just starting to
(38:22):
offer a new capability in yourbusiness, and maybe there's just
one person taking control ofthat, over to level two, where
you maybe have a buddy system.
So there's a couple of peoplecapable of delivering whatever
it is.
Then on to Level 3, where it'swell systemized and now it's
just a standard part of youroffer.
Mike was indicating that Level 4and 5 take considerable more
(38:44):
time and cost investment, butthere could be advantages in
moving to those stages as well,where you become tech and data
enabled to really optimize whatyou're doing, and finally to
Level 5, where everything is inexcellent state, and you can
really lean into innovation.
Another thing I found reallyinteresting about what Mike was
saying early on in theconversation is not only how Ops
(39:05):
fits into all of the above, indelivering those capabilities
and maybe designing thosemethodologies and processes, but
how our skills, our approachesand our use of technology mean
that we can actually start to gobeyond optimizing in house work
and become billable insupporting clients with their
work.
That's a really exciting thingto think about.
(39:26):
It's essentially making the movefrom operator to perhaps
technologist.
Now, if you'd like a cheat sheetwith the key takeaways from this
episode, then head toscoro.com/podcast and sign up
for the newsletter.
We always drop you an email theweek after the podcast episode
goes live, so you have thelearnings on hand to put into
practice.
(39:47):
I'm gonna leave it there.
If you enjoyed this episode,please share it with someone who
would appreciate thisconversation.
And do encourage your colleaguesto subscribe to the podcast.
I'll be back soon with the nextepisode.
Thanks very much.
Thanks for listening to The Handbook, the agency
(00:02):
operations podcast.
This podcast is brought to youby Scoro.
How is a platform like Scorodifferent from project
management tools like Asana,ClickUp, and Monday.
com?
Those platforms can be usefulproject management tools, but
what they don't do is cover theend to end of the agency
workflow.
What I mean by that is thatthey're not designed to create
(00:23):
your quotes, resource yourprojects, monitor your budget
and financial performance,invoice what you've done, and
report on your business.
That's the difference between aPM tool and a PSA, Professional
Services Automation tool.
I think of it like an operatingsystem for your agency that
brings together all of thesefunctions and interlinks
(00:43):
everything, so you're not leftwith data in silos and having to
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Scoro stood out amongst thecompetition when I was looking
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Sign up for a free trial atScoro.com.
Or if you arrange a demo call,tell them Harv sent you.
Now let's get to the episode.
(01:38):
Hi all, welcome back to thepodcast.
If you're a regular listener,you'll know that I often talk
about business maturity, how anagency evolves and optimizes its
operations.
I find business maturity models,an incredibly useful tool to
understand where you're at todayand what you can aim for.
But there's another perspectiveon maturity, the maturity of
(01:58):
your agency's capabilities, whatyou produce and deliver.
This is about the how, how youragency produces its outputs
through the lens of its people,processes, technology, and the
use of information.
The journey of maturity, whetherit's operational or capability
focused, is never really over.
(02:18):
There's always something new tooptimize, refine, or improve.
That's why I'm so excited abouttoday's guest, Mike Della Porta.
Mike is an award winningtechnology and operations leader
who thrives on solving bigoperational challenges.
As the former CTO, COO, and CIOat one of the leading
independent marketing agenciesin the US.
(02:41):
Mike led a transformation of theagency's capabilities to
innovate and scale, drivingrecord financial success.
With 20 years of experience,Mike founded Della Porta
Consulting to help agenciesscale sustainably while driving
profitability and growth.
He also helped launch anoperations program at one of the
leading agency networks in theStates, the 4As, which we'll be
(03:04):
diving into today.
Let's see what we can learn fromMike.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Mike Della Porta (03:12):
Thanks for having me.
Harv Nagra (03:13):
Let's start with your background in the agency
and tech space.
Could you share a bit about yourjourney with our listeners?
Mike Della Porta (03:19):
Sure.
I am a grizzled 20 year veteranof the agency world.
18 of those 20 years was withone of the leading independent
agencies in the States, uh,predominantly focused on media,
but we, we did have, a rather,large creative practice that
focused on a lot of contentmarketing.
But my background is mostly in,in media.
And, when I started, we wereabout 40 people and toward the
(03:42):
tail end of my career, we wereknocking on 300 folks.
So we
Harv Nagra (03:45):
Oh, wow.
Mike Della Porta (03:47):
growth story that really hockey sticked in
the last few years.
And during that period of time.
I had a chance to really growwith the organization.
So I started more on the sort ofhybrid role of account
management and media planningand buying where, you know, at a
40 person shop, everybody had todo everything.
So I got a chance to wear all ofthose hats, did my own account
(04:07):
management and my own insertionorders and
Harv Nagra (04:10):
Amazing.
Mike Della Porta (04:11):
to, you know, figure out those contracts and
then billing and reconciliation.
So a little bit of everythingalong the way.
as we started to grow, I had theopportunity to really pursue my
passions, which was more on theoperations and business
intelligence side of things, thetechnology side of things, and
help the organization reallydevelop new capabilities and
scale over the last couple ofyears.
Harv Nagra (04:33):
A lot of those areas that you specialize in, we share
very common interests in thosethings.
When I first met you, I wasreally excited to chat with you
and have you on the podcast sowe could compare notes and talk
about some of this stuff.
So that's really fantastic.
You've done some work with the4A's as well, which is a huge
network in the US.
For those that aren't familiar,can you tell us a bit about who
(04:54):
the 4A's are and what they do?
And talk about some of the workthat you've done with them.
Mike Della Porta (04:58):
Yeah of course, I love the 4A's.
So for those that don't know,the 4A's is basically, in the
States, it's the agency tradeassociation.
It's a wonderful group of peopleand experts that are there to
support agencies of alldifferent sizes and shapes, you
know, everything from holdingcompanies to the independence
and as a newly minted chiefoperating officer, I had
(05:18):
approached the 4A's and wasasking a few questions around,
generally where are my people,you know, I'm, I'm focused on
business intelligence andtechnology stuff and operations
stuff.
And, you know, we're looking atproject management systems.
I'm like, are there, are therepeers that I can speak with, you
know, at other agencies, andthere was some really wonderful
curriculum and opportunities atthe executive level for CEOs and
(05:42):
CFOs, but maybe not so much forfolks like me, chief operating
officers, where I always jokethe, the O in COO is other,
right?
It really varies from one agencyto another.
So, we had talked in, the 4A's,Molly Rosen in particular, Chick
Fox, Grover, Sal Conti, a fewothers had really supported me
and, and hooked me up with awonderful tag team partner,
(06:05):
Kiran Lenz.
That, the two of us had cofounded and co chaired, what we
call it is the, agencyoperations business
transformation round table, AOBTfor short,
Harv Nagra (06:15):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (06:16):
the idea was bringing together, COO, CIO,
CTOs, you know, folks thatreally focused on that tech and
operation space for agencies ofall ilks and bringing them
together and really talkingshop.
And it was such a wonderfulexperience in the sense that
everyone was so willing to shareand we really built a fantastic
community.
(06:36):
So it quickly became the largestround table at the 4A's over the
course of maybe 12, 18 months.
Harv Nagra (06:42):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (06:42):
we drafted a white paper together for the
industry.
Harv Nagra (06:46):
Hmm.
Mike Della Porta (06:46):
like a best practice and, and sort of guide
for agencies, again, of allsizes to help navigate the
various, uh, situations,scenarios, things that agencies
were running into.
Harv Nagra (06:58):
Amazing.
That is so impressive.
And I was having a peek at that,the content sounds super
relevant and really a playbookthat you can reference in terms
of how, how to go through someof this stuff.
You do have to be a member toaccess that, but, you can find
out more information about thaton the 4A's website.
but it's interesting you said,where are my people, and that's
(07:18):
something you were kind ofmissing.
I'm based in the UK, as youknow, and I've seen the
conversation about agencyoperations grow incredibly,
where it was kind of the thingthat people didn't really talk
about and you felt very isolatedand that has changed a lot over
the past couple of years.
So I'm just wondering, how doyou feel things are in that
space in the States?
(07:39):
Are there more conversationshappening as well?
Is it being taken more seriouslyor do you think there's still a
ways to go?
Mike Della Porta (07:44):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, I certainly there's,there's still a ways to go, but
I think, I think the biggestchange or that the catalyst for
a lot of this is, you know,agency operations, no matter how
you define it was, was alwayssort of more in the background,
right?
These are sort of the unsungheroes, the work that kind of
happens in, in the seams.
It's sort of invisible in a lotof ways, but these are the folks
that you know, really help theagency.
(08:06):
Whether it's running the agency,the operations of the agency, or
delivering services to clients.
These are the people that kindof act as the glue.
They, they make everything go.
And I think what's happeningover the course of time and
technology is really thecatalyst, is that is things are
getting more complicated andclients have a lot more
expectations around ROI andtransparency and security and
(08:30):
other capabilities that agenciesare really starting to get into.
Ops folks are graduating frombeing more behind the scenes and
invisible to being billable.
And so we're moving these, theseprofessionals these sort of
Swiss army knife type folks thatcan do a lot of different
things.
We're moving them forward In theprocess and engaging with
clients.
(08:50):
And I think the agencies thatare doing that proactively are
going to benefit greatly byintroducing the clients to these
types of professionals and theycan really influence the quality
of the work and the ideas andthe innovation upfront, as
opposed to maybe historically,really just being focused on
doing things better, faster,smarter, or fixing things.
Harv Nagra (09:12):
I really love that, Mike.
And I, I haven't really spoke toanyone that's put it that way in
terms of these roles becomingbillable, which I think is music
to the ears of any kind of MD orCEO of an agency,
Mike Della Porta (09:23):
for sure.
Harv Nagra (09:24):
that is really interesting, but you're right.
The more complex things get andthe more technology comes into
play.
And that's one of the, Oneaspect of the role of an
operations director, right?
But we've often had to justapply that behind the scenes and
in house.
So yeah, I can see the value ofthat, when you lend out that
kind of expertise to a client.
Mike Della Porta (09:43):
A 100%.
And it’s tricky, right, becausewhether you’re more gearing
towards the analytics side, thecreative side, the media side,
typically agencies are hiredfor, you know, their core
competencies, but, but everyagency is stretching in these
different directions, and again,I think the catalyst is largely
driven by a technology and, youknow, whether it's technology
(10:03):
and software development, AI,things that would have been done
behind the scenes to just makethings go, now these are
becoming capabilities andprojects that clients are
interested in and they could andshould be billable.
Harv Nagra (10:17):
Very, very interesting.
so one of the things that we'retalking about today is business
maturity.
to, to start, could you maybetell us what a business
capability maturity model is foranyone that's not familiar?
Mike Della Porta (10:30):
Sure.
It's, it's a really wonderfultool that acts as a framework
for the organization to assesswhat your capabilities are.
So these are things that, to putit in simplest terms, these are
things that you do.
So how good are we at doing thethings that we're hired for or
doing the things that we need todo in order to run a business
and agency.
It's a great framework to geteverybody around a document
(10:53):
where there's common language,common definitions of what good
looks like, and how do wecontinue to improve over the
course of time.
Harv Nagra (11:01):
So, tell us a bit more about what that looks like
the number of stages maybe, andthe dimensions that come into
play.
Mike Della Porta (11:08):
Yeah.
So typically, um, you know, andthere are all kinds of different
versions of this, but what theyall tend to have in common is
it's a five point scale.
One being the lowest, five beingthe highest, and usually what
you're looking for is thisgraduation from level one to two
to three all the way up to fivein some cases, the idea is that
you're evaluating yourcapabilities through a common
(11:28):
set of definitions andattributes criteria, and you
look at these capabilitiesthrough the prism of people,
process, technology andinformation.
And so it's a really, again,nice way for a leadership team,
or those that are in charge ofdepartments, divisions,
capabilities, to assess howthey're doing and really
consider what a roadmap lookslike and being clear about what
(11:51):
your ambition is at the in thein the grand scheme of things,
right?
It doesn't make sense to be arockstar at everything.
It's actually cost prohibitiveto do that in a lot of cases,
but where do you really want toplace your bets in terms of
investment and resources toreally shine on the things that
your agency needs to stand outfor the most hmm.
(12:12):
and then hedge a little bit onthe other things that maybe
aren't as important or would becharacterized as more kind of
supportive in nature.
Harv Nagra (12:19):
And really gives you a steer on kind of the gaps that
are causing you the biggest,biggest issues as well.
So you can start to unblock Soin terms of kind of assessing
yourself, and we'll be goinginto each of the stages in a
little bit more detail, so youcan walk us through and
visualize what that looks like.
Okay.
But in terms of assessing yourcapabilities against these, is
there a formal way you recommenddoing it?
Mike Della Porta (12:40):
I mean, you know, so it depends, I suppose,
on the size and the scope ofwhat you're trying to
accomplish.
There's certainly softwareplatforms out and there are
companies and consultants thatfocus on this specifically.
I was a, I was very lucky to bea customer of Gartner for a long
time.
So Gartner, in my view, is awonderful organization that
really helps with this sort ofthing.
(13:01):
But if you don't have theability to take advantage of
those types of resources, reallycan put this together in
something that amounts to likeExcel or a deck.
Just some basic tool that getsthe information down on paper
recorded so that it's shareableand knowable and you can get
your leadership team around itand revisit it, you know, maybe
on a quarterly basis.
Harv Nagra (13:22):
So Mike, even if someone isn't familiar with the
idea of a capability maturitymodel, their business might get
to a point where they stillrecognize there's a need to
change I'm sure you can think ofsome examples, what kinds of
things do you think lead tothose realizations that we need
to mature?
Mike Della Porta (13:37):
Sure.
So I think two of the classicsfor any agency is, We've just
won a monster new client.
We're so excited, but Oh mygoodness, our processes and our
tech, maybe our people, it allneeds to level up in order to
capitalize on the opportunityand deliver on the promise that
we just made, right.
So it's not that anything was,was necessarily wrong.
(14:00):
It's just not big enough or, or,or scalable enough.
it doesn't have the kind ofagility that you need to take on
that new big piece of business.
The other one that tends to popup and, you know, the starts to
dovetail into, you know, whereyou start on a capability model
typically is on that level oneyou might have somebody that's
just an absolute rock star atwhat they're performing, but
(14:22):
because they're the only personthat knows how to do that thing,
they're sick, if they go onvacation, if they leave the
organization, you have that sortof hit by a bus situation.
In other words, there's noredundancy in place.
So if that person isn't theredoing their thing, everything
stops.
And so again, if they're awesomeat what they're doing and
they're, but they're the onlyperson that knows what they're
(14:43):
doing, congratulations, you're aLevel 1 on the capability model.
And one of the things that youneed to work on is, that buddy
system, getting the tag team inplace, building the redundancy,
starting to get stuff down onpaper so that it's trainable.
And you can, you can work onthat within the organization so
that if and when that personisn't around anymore, for
whatever reason, you havesomebody else that can slide
(15:05):
right in.
Harv Nagra (15:05):
I had a client at one point that would constantly
bring up the example of gettinghit by a bus, that so and so is
the only person in yourorganization that controlling
this, you need to make surewe're going to be okay if
something goes wrong.
But yeah.
Mike Della Porta (15:18):
um, you know, another one I see all the time
and, and, you know, for folksthat have been on the, the
operation side of things, mostof the time when I got the phone
call, it's because it wassomething new that we had never
done before.
And so we needed to figure itout.
Right.
It was maybe something brand newthat just came up and it was
this amazing opportunity, ormaybe it was like an extension
and evolution of something thatwe were already doing,
Harv Nagra (15:40):
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (15:40):
to harden it.
We needed to scale it.
And so, you know, that wastypically one of the times I
would get the phone call.
The other time was whensomething needed to be fixed, it
was broken, or it was somethingthat wasn't as good as it could
be.
And so how do we, how do wefocus on improving it?
And so, you know, a lot of timesyou might have somebody that's a
practitioner of a certaincapability or function, or maybe
(16:01):
even a service that you'redeveloping for your client.
And in the agency world, youknow, there's those old adages
of a fake it till you make it,
Harv Nagra (16:09):
hmm.
Mike Della Porta (16:10):
you know, maybe you have that one person
that's doing their thing, butnow the question comes up, well,
we're doing this for onecustomer.
How do we do it for twocustomers?
How do we do it for threecustomers?
And when that moment happens.
You kind of have to step backand say, okay, what is it about
what this person is doing orthis combination of people,
process and tech that we canreplicate and scale and deliver
(16:33):
on the promise for multipleclients and take advantage of
that opportunity.
Harv Nagra (16:36):
100%.
We're going to be talking about,well, we're going to start by
talking through the stages, butwe're going to come back to this
point as well.
so why don't we get into thosestages?
I mean, the, the first two,maybe not particularly mature.
How do you differentiate betweenthose two?
Mike Della Porta (16:54):
Yeah, so, I mean, different words for level
1 and level 2, but, you know,typically level 1 is'initial'.
Harv Nagra (17:01):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (17:01):
You're, you're either starting out, you've
never done it before and you'restarting it, or it's perhaps
something that you've been doingfor a while, and it hasn't
received the kind of time andattention or maybe the
investment.
Required in order to do itconsistently.
Right?
So the way that this tends tofeel when these activities are
happening at a level 1 is it'skind of confusing.
(17:22):
It's maybe a little bit messy.
Firefighting comes to mind,right?
It's very ad hoc is Yeah.
sort of the point.
Right?
And so.
Some activities make sense forthat.
Maybe they happen every once ina while, but if it's something
that you really need to buildout and scale, that's when you
need to start looking at acapability model and saying,
okay, what are the things thatwe need to change again, through
(17:43):
the prism of people, process,talking information to, to start
to mature this, so moving upfrom initial to level two, which
would be characterized as'managed'.
Harv Nagra (17:53):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (17:54):
That starts to feel like you have the buddy
system in place.
You have more than one personthat can perform these things.
It's repeatable, there's sharedknowledge maybe within a team or
a department where they can backeach other up.
And the point there is thatrather than it being really ad
hoc, and there's not a lot ofdefinition around, like, what
good looks like, in level two,starts to take shape and you can
(18:15):
start to say, hey, I know thatwe did this thing really well
and we can train it up and wecan start to do it on a regular
basis.
Harv Nagra (18:22):
Hmm,
Mike Della Porta (18:22):
or you know another common scenario is, it's
sort of a decision aroundwhether or not to outsource.
Harv Nagra (18:29):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (18:29):
Maybe this is something that, early on,
because it was project based,you're outsourcing to a trusted
partner.
And over the course of time,because the work is more
consistent and repeatable.
You decide to insource it, ormaybe it's the opposite that
you're doing something in housebecause everybody has to do
everything.
And as you start to grow, youcan pick and choose your battles
in terms of what you'respecializing in, and maybe you
(18:51):
look at that work that's a bitmore commoditized and send it
off to an expert, a trustedpartner that can perform those
things, and you focus on reallywhat.
Set you apart from yourcompetition and what makes your
customers the happiest.
Harv Nagra (19:04):
Absolutely.
So, Mike, from there, we moveinto stage three.
Tell us what that is and whatthat looks like.
Mike Della Porta (19:12):
Sure.
So I, in my view, and especiallyin my experience, I think Stage
3 is generally what a lot oforganizations should be shooting
for,'roughly right'.
When you start talking aboutfours and fives and we'll, we'll
get there.
It starts to ratchet up with thecost and investment is there,
but for number 3, it's reallywhere the definition of good is
really well understood and youcan perform it.
(19:34):
It's really at the, thedepartment level, the division
level, multiple practitioners atthat point.
And to translate it, simply saidit becomes your bread and
butter.
Right.
These are the things that maybeyour agency is known for now.
what it feels like, it's, it'sroutine.
It's understood, because youhave that common definition of
what good looks like.
You can get a group of peopletogether and have a retro or a
(19:57):
post mortem and have a reallygreat conversation around, hey,
here's how we did, here, thenext time we do it, because we
know what's coming up.
Here are the things that we wantto change and improve.
So it really becomesinstitutionalized in terms of
knowledge at that point.
I think, once you're, onceyou're at that three level, or
you're shooting to be at thatthree level, that's where
technology and process reallybecomes important.
(20:19):
So what I, what I've seen in mycareer is a lot of things that
would be characterized as maybemanual in nature, things that
you've built and spreadsheets,this is the point where you're
probably in the market to lookat software to help digitize and
automate, or at least set thecircumstance, for, for that sort
of approach.
And so again, it's, it's sort ofa neat thing in the sense that
(20:41):
as you're building up towardsthe capability model and moving
up the levels, start almostcreating a requirements document
for, for what technology youmight be in the market for,
right?
You have your people in place,processes documented, the work
is getting out on time, on cost.
everybody is happy.
And now it's more a question of,well, how do we harden this?
(21:03):
How do we scale it even more?
That's usually the right momentto start thinking about
technology and what solutionsare out there.
Harv Nagra (21:10):
Mm hmm.
Thank you for that.
So we're, we're going to talkabout stage four and you also,
spoke about some of thefinancial investment that four
and five require, which I'mquite interested in hearing
about.
But first, maybe let's talkabout what goes into a level
four and, start there.
Mike Della Porta (21:27):
Yeah, so Level 4 really about feedback loops at
that point, right?
So you have a circumstance wherepeople and process are locked
down.
A lot of the work is gettingcaptured in software at that
point.
So you're creating and capturinginformation.
And so it creates thatcircumstance for more data
driven decision making.
whether that's people making thedecisions or you have software
(21:50):
and algorithms that are helpingto optimize those, those results
or processes for you, it'sreally about that measurement
and understanding that we have aprocess that's in control.
We know what the range is forlooking at what's good and we
can manage that to that effect.
And, I think it's, it's, it's,It makes sense for certain
things.
(22:10):
Level 4 makes sense foractivities or capabilities that
are more tech enabled from theget go.
So, you know, some of some ofthe capabilities I can think of
that really lend themselves tothat, certainly things related
to finance, cyber security onthe media side, programmatic and
platform driven media planningand buying.
There's so much technology atyour fingertips.
(22:30):
Um, for the folks that are handson keyboard there, they can take
advantage of a lot of thefunctionality that exists within
that software.
And deliver really outstandingresults for their clients.
But the biggest point there isthat the functionality exists.
You have to take advantage ofit.
Harv Nagra (22:46):
Excellent.
Okay.
So, um, level five What doesthis stage look like?
Mike Della Porta (22:51):
This is really about optimization and
innovation.
So your maturity has reached apoint where you have the data at
your fingertips and you've,you've more or less created that
culture of excellence.
So everything is firing on allcylinders You've moved You've
beyond improving the process.
You're actually innovating onthe process or innovating beyond
(23:13):
the process.
Harv Nagra (23:14):
Hmm.
Mike Della Porta (23:14):
So it's a really outstanding place to be
in the grand scheme, but again,it doesn't lend itself to
everything that an agency wouldbe doing.
Harv Nagra (23:21):
Hmm.
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (23:23):
That information and the people that
are in those seats interpretingthe information and making
decisions and ultimatelytinkering and innovating beyond
the process that that is a areally important place to be for
new capabilities and where maybethe puck is going.
Harv Nagra (23:40):
Hmm.
Excellent.
I really think That helps usvisualize how we can go from
Starting out with the new offercapability all the way to the
other end of the maturity scalewith a focus on innovation.
All right.
So we're going to switch gears alittle bit.
Given your background andexperience, I wanted to ask you
some broader questions.
So starting with, you know, youtalk about the importance of
tech and business transformationand the importance of optimizing
(24:03):
your tech stack.
Can you talk us through that alittle bit?
Why do you see that as animperative?
Mike Della Porta (24:10):
Sure.
I think, um, you know, dependingon the size of the organization
and how quickly you're growingagain, I go back to, it's not
necessarily fact that anythingis wrong or broken.
it's maybe just not flexible orscalable for what your growth
trajectory is.
Every agency knows a lot ofthings are born in spreadsheets
(24:30):
and sort of these manualactivities, and when you start
to grow and scale and you startto invest and you need more
people involved with it and youstart asking yourself questions
around, well, where's the singlesource of truth for this?
And how do I know the status ofthat?
That's where technology canreally shine.
And so one of my favoriteexamples is certainly project
(24:51):
management systems.
I've never met an, met an agencythat's been absolutely in love
with their project managementplatform.
so I, I don't believe that, youknow, that exists where there's
a silver bullet from a, from aPM perspective.
However, the agency is growing.
There are differentconsiderations for what you may
be in the market for.
And that's what I mean byevaluating your technology stack
(25:13):
every so often, or, or in mycase, I used to do it on a
scheduled basis.
regardless of what the growthtrajectory was, you know, the
growth would always pull things,but regardless of the growth, I
would always check in on an, onan annual semi annual basis to
make sure that everything was,Working the way that we needed
to.
And I spent a lot of time on theedges of where the work was, you
know,
Harv Nagra (25:32):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (25:33):
folks that were interacting with our
clients to really hear firsthandfrom their experience, what they
needed so that I could arm themwith the best tech.
And so they could deliver thebest service to our clients.
Harv Nagra (25:43):
That's really great advice.
You also talk about kind ofinaccurate reporting data silos
and endless spreadsheets, and Imean, a spreadsheet is a super
easy place to start.
So that's why we, I think alljust kind of gravitate to that
when we start doing anyplanning, but it does get really
messy and hard to stay on topof.
Mike Della Porta (26:01):
Agencies are, are, are interesting
organizations.
You know, I, I, I've worked onthe agency side for 20 years.
Harv Nagra (26:07):
yeah.
Mike Della Porta (26:08):
it's just so core to our DNA to be fast, to
be first.
there's,
Harv Nagra (26:12):
mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (26:13):
you know, I can think of times in my career
where I was kind of an, anadrenaline junkie, right?
Like I, I would love.
would always love to be wherethe action is, right?
Whether it was a firefighting orlike something new that we were
doing, but the point was is thatit was new.
It was exciting.
It was fast.
It was unpredictable.
That sort of
Harv Nagra (26:30):
Mm,
Mike Della Porta (26:31):
in the face of a lot of the discipline that you
need from a businessintelligence perspective to slow
down a little bit and adopt moreof a mindset of measure twice,
cut once, right?
So
Harv Nagra (26:43):
mm
Mike Della Porta (26:43):
there's this illusion that going fast somehow
saves you time when, in effect,it actually more often than not
causes the team to go back intime to fix and correct things
that they, they should havespent a little bit more time
focused on in the first place,right?
Or maybe partnering with ourclients, partnering with our
partners, getting the alignment,the stakeholder alignment up
(27:05):
front to really understand whatare we all trying to accomplish
together?
Where does this information comefrom?
we get it?
Do we trust it?
Like the lineage of informationis really important.
just simple things like namingconventions and versioning.
Are they attachments, are theyit up in the cloud?
Very, very tactical things that,that if you have a good handle
(27:26):
on can really be a lifesaver inthe grand scheme in terms of
accuracy and efficiency.
Harv Nagra (27:31):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (27:31):
a, from a data and analytics and BI
perspective.
So I like to work with teamswhere, you know, typically the,
the activities are very manualin nature.
There's a lot of spreadsheets.
And the first place I like tofocus on is really just what are
the needs?
What are those businessquestions?
Harv Nagra (27:50):
mm
Mike Della Porta (27:51):
everybody's
Harv Nagra (27:51):
mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (27:52):
on and developing something, you know,
almost a cousin to the businesscapability model is a maturity
framework, or I'm sorry, ameasurement framework rather
Harv Nagra (28:01):
Mm.
Mike Della Porta (28:02):
nails down.
What are those businessquestions?
What KPIs help us understand theanswers to those questions or
give us insight?
Where does the information comefrom and can we draw a straight
line across of those things?
All before pulling aspreadsheet, typing a number
into a piece of software.
Let's get that alignment firstto make sure that we're all on
(28:24):
the same page.
Harv Nagra (28:25):
Absolutely.
So Mike, when it comes toimproving ways of working,
sometimes I hear in house opspeople say that I get it and I
know this is important, but myMD isn't on board.
What would you, what would yousay to them in terms of advice?
Mm, mm,
Mike Della Porta (28:43):
You know, ops people are so great, they can do
so many different things and Ithink, you know, culturally
that's a really bigconsideration in the grand
scheme in terms of the approach.
So culturally, if operations isconsidered more kind of back
office behind the scenes, maybejust getting the phone call when
things are broken and need to befixed or sped up, knowing that
(29:06):
start point is important.
And so how do you how do youstart to reposition within that
circumstance?
It's understanding the valuethat you can create.
And most importantly, it's thevalue that your stakeholders are
yearning for.
So if you can understand whatthat is and how to speak that
language and then work with yourcolleagues and your stakeholders
(29:27):
and your leadership to help themunderstand how you can do that,
how you can add that value orcreate that value.
the most important part of, ofstarting that journey ops people
in my view, and I was guilty ofthis too.
We, we focus a little bit toomuch on how we need to focus on
why, and if we can do that andreally get to the heart of that,
(29:48):
then we have all kinds oftricks, all kinds of tech and
processes and methods and tools,all these things that we can
bring to bear.
creating that value,
Harv Nagra (29:58):
Mm
Mike Della Porta (29:59):
and getting into the seat of the
stakeholders criticallyimportant.
Harv Nagra (30:03):
hmm.
Absolutely.
So, Mike, another thing that Ihear ops people say is that they
might come into a level one orlevel two business and they end
up feeling really overwhelmedbecause there's so much to fix.
And it's like every problem I goto fix, I uncover five others.
What would you say to them?
Mike Della Porta (30:23):
Yeah.
Isn't that the truth?
Um, I think a good projectcharter can be an invaluable
tool in the grand scheme becauseyou're right.
Inevitably, you'll be sent outon a mission.
Harv Nagra (30:33):
Mm,
Mike Della Porta (30:33):
uh, doing your thing and you'll, you'll uncover
all kinds of interesting thingsalong the way.
And what I,
Harv Nagra (30:41):
mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (30:41):
told my, my teams is write that stuff down.
Let's report it up
Harv Nagra (30:46):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (30:47):
check in on that, but let's be careful not
to get derailed.
Right.
Harv Nagra (30:51):
Mm.
Mike Della Porta (30:51):
words, if it's not
Harv Nagra (30:52):
Yeah.
Mike Della Porta (30:53):
to the mission that we're on already, let's see
that one
Harv Nagra (30:56):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (30:57):
we have a backlog of things that, Oh, that
was interesting, or, Oh boy,this is going to come back to
haunt us in a little bit.
Let's circle back on that stuff
Harv Nagra (31:04):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (31:05):
the initial mission.
And I think that's importantbecause it can turn into.
You know, I always call theselike sort of Frankenstein
projects, right?
You start off with one thing andthen it just starts appending
all these different, uh, other,other sort of submissions in the
grand scheme.
And what ends up happening isyou never actually complete
anything.
Harv Nagra (31:23):
Yep.
Mike Della Porta (31:23):
then that
Harv Nagra (31:23):
Mm-hmm
Mike Della Porta (31:24):
uh, your ability and credibility with
your stakeholders to do thatnext thing.
Right.
So important to deliver on thatfirst promise, collect the
intelligence and, and the thingsthat you've uncovered.
And then we can, we can wrapthat up in a, in a new project
and set off on that.
Harv Nagra (31:44):
Really, really good advice.
The backlog.
I think focusing on the thingsthat are going to be a factor in
this project and then justputting the rest the backlog is
really, really good advice.
Mike Della Porta (31:53):
I mean, harv, another strategy, just building
on that quickly is a new opsperson being invited to the
party on a particular thing.
It can be overwhelming, um,identifying where the low
hanging fruit is.
Is really important, right?
So, you know, that adage of, youknow, let's not boil the ocean,
find something that you canreally knock down and create a
lot of value, build thestakeholder excitement, the
(32:17):
credibility and use that as thefoundation and the momentum to
do bigger things later on, Ithink is a really nice strategy.
I've seen that work quite a bit.
Harv Nagra (32:26):
Excellent.
Mike, last couple of questions.
Is there anything else you'd sayor advice you'd give to someone
in an Ops role that maybe wehaven't covered or do you think
we pretty well covered therange?
Mike Della Porta (32:38):
No, that's a, that's a great question.
And it's somewhat related.
I'm teaching businessintelligence at my alma mater,
the
Harv Nagra (32:44):
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (32:46):
I was talking about this with my students, I
think for ops people, forbusiness intelligence, people,
for anybody in that, in thatarena, the curiosity is so
important and collaboration andthe relationships.
the most important, the tools,the tech, as much as I love
technology and everything that'sout there and how fast it's
(33:07):
moving,
Harv Nagra (33:08):
Mm.
Mike Della Porta (33:09):
it's all incredibly exciting,
Harv Nagra (33:11):
Mm hmm.
Mike Della Porta (33:12):
I'm just gonna continue to change and move, and
morph into all kinds of things.
So how we get the results thatwe're looking for is, is a
little less important than that,that why, and building the
relationships and understandingyour stakeholders.
So for those that are in in thearena or about to enter the
arena, I would ask them orencourage them to really focus
(33:34):
on the more the soft skills andthe people in the relationship.
And the tools and the solutionswill, will swiftly follow.
Harv Nagra (33:44):
hmm.
I like that.
Um, where, where do you thinkthe next couple of years is
going to take us in terms oflike the, the, the tech that we
use in agencies?
Mike Della Porta (33:54):
Oh boy.
I can answer that in two ways, Imean certainly everyone is
talking about AI and all itsdifferent flavors.
So, you know, on the media sidewhere everything is so tech
enabled and is, Throwing off somuch information.
I think there's a wonderfulopportunity there, to further,
further integrate AI and machinelearning.
(34:17):
It's, it's always been there.
It's always been in thesoftware.
That's sort of the funny thingin the grand scheme of things is
that, you know, the, the worldand the industry is talking
about AI and machine learning asif it's a new thing.
It's just, it's, I think it it'sbecome a bit more in the
forefront of, of.
The public in the grand scheme,where, you know, if you work in
ad tech, especially this is,this has been the case for
(34:38):
forever, practically.
Um, but with that being said, Ithink, I think the integration
into the workflow and takingadvantage of the functionality
is, is really the most importantthing.
And it's moving so quickly, it'smaking the time.
For those people that are handson keyboard to learn the new
bells and whistles and figureout where it applies for their
work.
So that's really important.
(34:58):
And then from a from an agencyperspective and enterprise
perspective, I think it's reallylooking at your operations staff
and your technologists, whetherthey're formally identified as
such or identifying those maybecitizen developers or those high
potentials.
And really arming those folkswith the, the circumstance and
(35:19):
the learning and development,the support really help them
realize their potential, becausethose folks are really going to
be the future leaders of yourorganization.
they're going to be the futurestrategists.
They're going to be the reasonthat your clients sign up with
you.
And so those people and makingsure that they're ready and that
they're visible and confidentand creating a lot of value.
where I would focus a lot oftime and energy.
Harv Nagra (35:41):
That is such an inspiring note to end on and,
and really gives us something tothink about.
Thank you very much for that.
so Mike, we're coming to the endof our discussion.
Can you tell us a bit about thekinds of businesses or agencies
that you support and what kindof work you do with them?
Mike Della Porta (35:58):
Sure.
I love working with agencies.
It's certainly my background.
I have a special place in myheart for agencies.
I'm also a Lean Six Sigmapractitioner.
So where I, where I love toengage with agencies, are sort
of in two circumstances.
Agencies that are looking togrow proactively or they found
themselves in receipt of, growthopportunities.
(36:19):
They won that next big client.
And in both cases, they'relooking to really harden their,
their processes and theirtechnologies.
So oftentimes it takes the shapeof, Hey, we have all of these
processes or we have thetechnology that we have.
can we, can we partner together?
Can you look at what we have andmake recommendations on.
(36:40):
scalable?
What's not?
If we're in the market for newtalent, new process, new
technology, how do wecharacterize what that is and
make sure that we're making theright choices?
Harv Nagra (36:51):
hmm.
Mike Della Porta (36:51):
And so not just helping with the evaluation
and recommendation along thoselines, but in many cases,
helping with the implementationas well.
Because that's really kind ofthe hardest part at the end of
the day is the changemanagement.
You've, you've bought a newsystem or you've brought on a
new team of people.
Everyone's excited for that newthing, that new opportunity, but
(37:13):
where the rubber really hits theroad is the implementation and
the, and the change management.
And that's something Ispecialize in.
Harv Nagra (37:19):
Excellent.
And do you kind of work acrossthe U S then or kind of closer?
Mike Della Porta (37:23):
do.
I'm based in Western New York,go Bills! but I work with
agencies across the country.
Harv Nagra (37:29):
Amazing.
And if anyone wants to go andlearn more about you, Mike,
where can they do that?
Mike Della Porta (37:35):
Sure.
I'm very active on LinkedIn, soyou can find me there, or, I
would love a visit at my websiteat dellaportaconsulting.Com.
Harv Nagra (37:42):
Thank you so much.
Mike, it's been a pleasure tohave you on the show.
So thank you so much for, forjoining us today.
Mike Della Porta (37:50):
Oh, thank you for the opportunity.
And I love that you're doingthis podcast and helping us
agency folks in operations, uh,get together, share best
practices and learn a littlebit.
Harv Nagra (38:00):
Thank you so much, Mike.
All right, everyone.
Welcome back.
That was a really interestingconversation.
I found myself in the pastdebating the methodologies we
followed to deliver certainoutputs, discussing how we could
simplify, standardize or speedup the process.
And I think Mike's examplesreally illustrated how you can
look at that step by step fromwhere you're just starting to
(38:22):
offer a new capability in yourbusiness, and maybe there's just
one person taking control ofthat, over to level two, where
you maybe have a buddy system.
So there's a couple of peoplecapable of delivering whatever
it is.
Then on to Level 3, where it'swell systemized and now it's
just a standard part of youroffer.
Mike was indicating that Level 4and 5 take considerable more
(38:44):
time and cost investment, butthere could be advantages in
moving to those stages as well,where you become tech and data
enabled to really optimize whatyou're doing, and finally to
Level 5, where everything is inexcellent state, and you can
really lean into innovation.
Another thing I found reallyinteresting about what Mike was
saying early on in theconversation is not only how Ops
(39:05):
fits into all of the above, indelivering those capabilities
and maybe designing thosemethodologies and processes, but
how our skills, our approachesand our use of technology mean
that we can actually start to gobeyond optimizing in house work
and become billable insupporting clients with their
work.
That's a really exciting thingto think about.
(39:26):
It's essentially making the movefrom operator to perhaps
technologist.
Now, if you'd like a cheat sheetwith the key takeaways from this
episode, then head toscoro.com/podcast and sign up
for the newsletter.
We always drop you an email theweek after the podcast episode
goes live, so you have thelearnings on hand to put into
practice.
(39:47):
I'm gonna leave it there.
If you enjoyed this episode,please share it with someone who
would appreciate thisconversation.
And do encourage your colleaguesto subscribe to the podcast.
I'll be back soon with the nextepisode.
Thanks very much.
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