June 3, 2025 • 42 mins
The agency world is undergoing major shifts, with evolving business models, leaner teams, and new demands on project leaders. While disruption can feel overwhelming, it also presents opportunities for growth—if you know how to adapt. As roles blur and responsibilities pile up, resilience and flexibility have never been more essential.
Joining us is Harv Nagra, Head of Brand Communications at Scoro and host of The Handbook: Agency Ops podcast, to break down how operating models are changing and what project managers can do to stay ahead. From navigating uncertainty to leading with a growth mindset, this episode offers actionable insights for anyone facing rapid change in agency life.
Resources from this episode:
- Join DPM Membership
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Harv on LinkedIn
- Check out Scoro and The Handbook: Agency Ops podcast
- Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Galen Low (00:00):
You have a new job title!
Congratulations.
You also still haveyour old job title.
And your team is half thesize it was last week.
And you're being told thebusiness model is shifting to
meet the demands of the market.
And you're starting to worry.
Disruption is a fickle beast.
On the one hand, itis destabilizing and
(00:21):
pretty stressful.
But on the other hand, it cancreate opportunities as business
models evolve in response.
This is exactly what'shappening in the agency
world right this very second.
And unfortunately, it'sjust one of those things
where there will be winnersand there will be losers.
So if you're looking for tipson how to stay resilient and
set yourself up to thrivewithin evolving agency operating
(00:43):
models, keep listening.
We're gonna be getting thelow-down on exactly how agency
operating models are changingand what you can do as a project
team leader to support yourteams while also positioning
yourself as an adaptable,growth-minded tour-de-force.
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in.
(01:04):
My name is Galen Low withThe Digital Project Manager.
We are a community of digitalprofessionals on a mission
to help each other getskilled, get confident, and
get connected so that we canamplify the value of project
management in a digital world.
If you wanna hear moreabout that, head on over
to thedpm.com/membership.
And if you're intofuture-looking conversations
and practical insights arounddigital project leadership,
(01:26):
consider subscribing to thisshow for weekly episodes.
Alright, today we are talkingabout changing agency operating
models and how projectmanagers can help their teams
and themselves survive andthrive as the floor tiles
shift underneath their feet.
With me today is Harv Nagra— agency operations specialist,
(01:46):
Head of Brand Communicationsat Scoro, and the host of The
Handbook (01:49):
Agency Ops podcast.
Harv, thanks for beingwith me today, man.
Harv Nagra (01:53):
Absolute pleasure, Galen.
I'm really glad to be here.
And of course, you've justcome off our show as well,
so really exciting to dothis collaboration with you.
Galen Low (02:01):
I love a good podcast swap.
So for our listeners, thisis actually the second part
of a conversation that Harvand I started on his podcast.
So for the full POV, checkthe link in the show notes
and give it a listen.
I'm not sure yet if itmatters whether you listen
to this one first or not.
Harv Nagra (02:17):
We'll, I think either order works well.
Galen Low (02:20):
And of course, if you are someone who's listening
who is into agency ops, considersubscribing to Harv's podcast.
It's called The Handbook.
It's incredible.
It's casual.
It's kind of like this one.
It's a lot of fun and Ithink it's great for just
getting that perspective.
Even if you are not anoperations person, heck,
even if you're not anagency person, I think it
gives a lot of perspectiveon business maturity,
(02:42):
operations, how stuff works,how stuff can work better.
I thought maybe I would startwith the juicy question.
Let me give us a runway.
So I feel like there's alot of change afoot right
now with the economy.
It's like driving like somevery talented people in my
network into the layoff wagon.
And also agencies arerestructuring in hopes that
(03:04):
they can do a little more, orat least as much with less.
We've got AI disruptingknowledge work left and right,
and many full-time roles arejust kinda like moving to
fractional and freelance roles.
My question is, what can agencydelivery teams do to rally and
be resilient and to support oneanother through all this change?
Harv Nagra (03:24):
There is so much happening.
But first of all, Galen you'rethrowing me off on the deep
end with the hardest questionjust to start off anyway.
Galen Low (03:31):
How do we fix the world, Harv?
Harv Nagra (03:32):
Yeah.
How do we fix the world?
There is so much change though,Galen, like it is a stressful
time, like you're saying,layoffs for a couple years, the
market's been quite difficult.
And then the whole AI thingand scary things happening in
the economy with tariffs andall that kind of fun stuff.
So yeah it is terrifying.
But I think the most successfulteams that I've ever worked
(03:53):
in, like one of thosethings is culture, really.
Psychological safety is aterm that comes to mind.
So I think the most flexible,adaptable, successful
teams really like eachother, first of all.
So making sure that leadershipor building a culture where
people can turn to one anotherfor advice, ensuring that
people aren't afraid to admitareas that they need to learn
(04:16):
in or are weaker for them sothat other people can help
fill that gap, or that youcan jointly go on a mission
to go find those skillsor bring in experts to it.
Teach you how to do certainthings or whatever it might
be, because we can't overcomethese challenges alone.
Like we're notmeant to be silos.
That's not the purposeof an organization.
So we do have to rely oneach other, and you need
(04:38):
that connection to keep youmotivated and you need some
clarity and a point of viewfrom the organization's
perspective about where you'reheaded, how you're gonna be
adopting all these tools, andhow you're gonna be navigating
some of these challenges.
So making sure thatcommunication is super clear.
And it's not being likeclose to the chest so
that no one really knows.
That would be like aterrible thing to do.
(04:58):
So I think culture is thefirst thing that comes to mind.
And then secondly,I'm an ops sky, right?
So I'm gonna be biased, but Ithink it's genuinely true that
great operations is so critical.
You just can't be running areally successful business if
you're always winging it, right?
There's a degree of course.
Adaptability and flexibilitythat is so important
(05:20):
to being successful.
But I think you can't justbe always making it up.
You can't be relying on peopleoverextending themselves to
make sure that you're creatingthis kind of impression to your
clients that things are beingheld together well, behind
the scenes is absolute chaos.
That's not a resilient business.
So you have to be operating ina more mature way, making sure
(05:42):
that your teams are structuredthe way you deliver your work.
You've got a methodology, yourprocesses, the tools, the way
you analyze your data so thatyou're not wasting resource, and
you're able to measure resultsand also forecast what's coming.
So all of that points togood operations and operating
in a more mature way.
Galen Low (06:03):
I love those anchors because like a,
the first thing he saysis like, learning, right?
And like being willing andhaving that culture to be
like, cool, we don't knoweverything because A, maybe
we're, we talked about thisin our conversation too.
Maybe you're being asked totake on more responsibilities
in an area that is notyour sort of core skillset.
Maybe you're learningnew AI tools, right?
Everything's different now.
We all have to be able to say,yeah, nobody knows everything
(06:25):
and let's figure it out.
So the anchor point oflearning, I love the anchor
point of just like direction.
And I think so many folksare getting this wrong
because they're like, wedon't know where we're
going, so let's say nothing.
But you're moving,you're doing something,
you're trying something.
And I think thatvisibility can help a lot.
And then I like that ideathat yeah, a lot of folks
are gonna try and fly bythe seat of their pants.
(06:45):
Right now, because thatfeels like all you can do.
Like even just like regularpeople outside of agency, right?
Like, how am I gonna pickmy groceries this week?
Bringing stability to it throughoperations if I'm picking
up what you're putting down,like agile, nimble operations.
It's like cool, we're not gonnarewrite every SOP starting now
until like third quarter 2026.
What can we do now toanchor this, to put this on
(07:05):
rails so that we are stilldelivering predictably,
that we are documenting whatis changing and that we're
not just pretending thateverything's business as usual.
We're like buildinga new machine.
We're iterating on it.
Harv Nagra (07:16):
Absolutely.
It's like iterating regularly.
So whether it's like quarter,there's just milestones.
I think annuallyis a big milestone.
Quarterly is a milestone, butthings are changing so fast
right now that even on a monthlybasis, you just have to be like
sticking your head above thework and whatever's happening.
And making sure that whateveryou're doing is still fit
for purpose and it doesn'tneed a different kind of
(07:38):
point of view or an approach.
Galen Low (07:40):
Can we dig into that a little bit?
Because I love gettingpractical, tactical.
I know my listenersare going, cool.
What does that meeting like,what does that monthly meeting
look like where we're gonnarevisit ops and ops changes.
Harv Nagra (07:51):
I think what I used to do is we used to have in
my agency a monthly All hands,and it was, first of all,
we had a really fun format.
Like all hands can be,feel very corporate and dry
agencies are fun places.
And we decided that we weregonna have fun with it.
So there was a lot of music andvideo and stuff like that in it.
(08:11):
So first of all, that wasquite an engaging moment
to get everyone reallymotivated about the mission.
But there's a couple things thatI did during those all hands.
One was operationally I wouldlook at the tools that we're
using our systems and see ifthere's any changes that the
product had come out withthat we needed to share so
(08:32):
that there was a new, easier,better way to do something.
Number two was it was anopportunity to reinforce skills
that people may have forgot,or that me as the operations
director or my colleague asthe finance director, would
be like, oh my God, peopleare forgetting this thing.
We need to reinforce that.
So it was that moment,but also a moment to
like share skills, right?
There's loads of new AI toolscoming out on a monthly basis.
(08:54):
So it'd be, sometimes it'dbe like working with the UX
designers to say, Hey, could yougive a session to our team on
how you're using these new kindof AI wire framing platform?
So just paint the picture.
And I remember like when Fireflyor whatever it was, Adobe came
out with this kind of you promptit to delete something off a
picture or whatever it was, ordrop box around it or something.
(09:16):
I remember now that's likesecond nature to us in a matter
of months, but like at somepoint it was like, holy crap,
that used to take us ages toPhotoshop that out and now it's
draw a circle around it andtell it to disappear, right?
So taking those moments toreinforce new skills, introduce
new tools, but also look atthe way you're working and
see if it needs to pivot.
(09:37):
But I think super importantwith that is not just to
present it, but to go back toyour handbook or whatever it
is and document that so peoplecan reference it afterwards.
And it's not all based onmemory from what happened in
the all hands two months ago.
Galen Low (09:49):
I love the reinforcement bit and then just
like the cross training, likeyou could be in that town hall
and not be someone who does wireframe anything and kind of start
understanding how you can fitthose puzzle pieces together.
It's inspiring, it's crosstraining and so much of learning
these new tools is just likefeeling comfortable with the
idea that you're not alone.
You're not the only one doingthis, you're not doing the wrong
thing, and like wasting time.
(10:11):
And then I love the kindof follow up, right?
That's okay, cool.
This is where we ask questionsand correct and tilt, but
actually we want, it's to gentlypush people on a certain course
and then help them along thatpath as well, so that the ops
stay relevant, that peopleare using the tools properly.
They know it's possible.
Harv Nagra (10:29):
Yep.
And back to that pointabout introducing certain
tools might not be relevantto everyone, right?
Like the UX wire framingtool or whatever.
Absolutely true.
But it also establishes thatword organization that is
learning and experimentingand it encourages other
people to do that intheir own kind of realms.
And the following month theycould be the ones presenting
the account manager's approachto AI or whatever it is.
(10:51):
So it's really cool tofeed off the energy and
make everyone feel thatyou're in an organization
that's moving forward.
Galen Low (10:58):
It's funny 'cause you started with culture and
like you can see a lot of peoplestruggle with culture and they
try and fabricate it, but likeexactly what you just said is
yeah, we create this form thatdemonstrates our values, right?
That we're changing, that we'reinnovative, that, we talk to
one another and this is notlike the dry town hall where
we push information at you.
It's fun.
There's, not every agencyculture is gonna be like, yes,
(11:18):
music and fun and everything,but honestly I think it's
a good way of doing it.
Harv Nagra (11:21):
Absolutely.
Galen Low (11:22):
I wonder if I could zoom out a bit.
So for folks who don't knowHarv, your background is
in agency operations, butyou've also had almost all
the roles under like theagency ops umbrella, from
project manager to marketingspecialist to senior digital
producer to group directorof operations and I think
it just gives you this likereally interesting perspective,
(11:43):
like from the front lines.
As well as like fromthe command center.
And we're talking aboutevolving agency models,
things like changing aroundus, operating models and
business maturity and all thatstuff that I know you love.
I'm just wondering, whatare some of the evolutions
that you see in agencyoperating models today?
And what in your opinion,should agency leaders be
(12:04):
doing to support theirdelivery teams as the business
like adapts to change?
Harv Nagra (12:09):
Step back a moment and first just shout
out the fact that, severalyears ago, or even a few years
ago, I feel like operationsin general in terms of an
organization that was somethingmaybe the biggest agencies
had people in place for.
And it wasn't really somethingthat I felt was very talked
about, so I didn't evenknow it was a career path
perhaps, or that it, it wasa role that was available.
(12:31):
Other than that, I was thereplugging some gaps as a producer
or as the digital directorand juggling responsibilities
and stuff like that.
So that's the bigger picturechange that I've seen is
operations being taken seriouslyand being talked about more,
which is super important Ithink, for all of us to be
running smarter businesses orworking in smarter businesses.
(12:52):
And of course I think,COVID ushered in the whole
remote working, hybridworking thing, so a lot
of change came with that.
But I see a lot moreexperimentation Galen
with staffing models.
And I'm sure you talked aboutthis on your podcast quite often
is like beyond just freelancers,fractional support coming in,
people bringing in outsideexperts, offshoring nearshoring,
(13:12):
having fully remote teams.
And there's also thesekind of new services.
I can't call them new servicesanymore 'cause they've
been around for years now.
But design as a service whereyou can just hire somebody
for a set fee and they yousend all your requirements to
them and they go and executeand send it back to you.
So there's a lot ofchange happening in
that kind of regard.
I think the challenge isprobably around a lot of
(13:35):
things, but one of them Ithink is how this dilutes
the company culture.
When you have all thesekind of fractional or
outside people coming inand constantly rotating
is, what does that mean?
There's already been a challengewith remote and hybrid teams
and how that dilutes companyculture and not everyone has
fully understood how to tacklethat and how to make sure that
(13:57):
you're operating in this kindof remote first way and making
sure that it's super inclusiveand that you're ensuring that
people have that same experienceand opportunities when they're
working from home or remotely.
But figuring out how toonboard people and collaborate
people with the right waywhen they're in these kind of
fractional roles are coming inat odd moments and making sure
(14:17):
you're maintaining the kindof standards and the quality
that you expect of yourself.
So I think those are someof the challenges and some
of the changes I've seen.
Galen Low (14:25):
No, that's a huge change and we're seeing that
in the community as well.
A lot of folks in the projectmanagement world switching
to freelance work becausethere's more opportunities
available to them.
There is this sort of shiftin full-time employment
versus fractional.
And even if you aren't makingthat shift, then the team
that you're working with mightactually be made up of that.
Like the design asa service thing.
(14:45):
Like I actually, I'mnot too up on that.
And it sounds like it would takea whole different sort of set
of skills, different playbookreally, to be managing that, to
be, having that, anyone who'sdone like a full waterfall
style project when you'retrying to get every requirement.
Documented and detailedupfront so that you can
send it off and it doesn'tchange and you get the thing
(15:07):
back the way you wanted it.
It's almost like reaching backinto that grab bag of okay,
we need to be, like we needto bolster our documents,
requirements process.
Because we spent all these yearsgetting a little more agile and
going, Hey, do you like this?
Here's an MVP,should we change it?
And then suddenly yourteam, you're like, okay,
I don't have my freelancerfor the entire project, just
for the first three weeks.
That's all we couldafford in the budget.
(15:27):
We need to change theway we're working.
And I love that notionthat yeah, we just need to
go in, eyes open, right?
With the fact that remotework and remote first is a
thing that requires attention,that you know our projects
are gonna run differently.
And really swinging back tothe importance of ops, the
importance of nimble ops sothat this is also supported,
(15:47):
not just make it up as we go.
Maybe we're making it upas we go, but we're also
trying to make it moreuniform, more predictable,
more stable, and honestlybetter for the business.
Harv Nagra (15:56):
Totally.
Back in the old days,like now, it's like over
five years ago, right?
But you could look overyour shoulder at someone's
screen or just talk toyour peer next door and ask
them how to do something.
And it is not as possible.
You have to message themon Slack or Teams or
whatever it is, or jump ina Huddle or call or schedule
something so that knowledgesharing is not as fluid.
(16:20):
And those conversations,there's a hurdle because you're
not constantly just able totalk out loud to somebody.
You have to send that message.
So I, I think that's wherethose kind of having that, a
bit of documentation and allof that stuff centrally where
people can access it and theyknow the way the company and
the organization, the projectsare meant to run so they
(16:41):
have something to reference.
But of course, encouraging thatconversation to make sure people
get the no nuance from thepeople they need to speak to.
Galen Low (16:48):
I love that.
If I'm understanding thatcorrectly, there's this
sort of like ops layer thatcan help support in terms
of like culture, values,ways of working systems.
And then there will also bethis sort of like cool, but
also you're plugging intothis team as a freelancer and
here's the, like they havetheir own sort of team culture
ways of working, differentproject requirements and
they needed different things.
(17:08):
So that's where you'regonna get that as well.
Harv Nagra (17:10):
Absolutely.
Galen Low (17:11):
It's cool.
I like that.
We talked a bit about thisin our conversation on your
podcast, but I wanna digin a little bit because one
thing that our communityis seeing a lot of is just
like this increase in whatI'm calling role blending.
Where like a role that wasonce a singular full-time
position is now expectedto wear an additional hat
to serve some changes tothe business strategy.
(17:32):
Do you see this as maybe apotential opportunity for
like career growth as in couldthis become a role transition?
Or in your eyes from an opsstandpoint, would this more
be like a cost savings measurethat an agency project manager
maybe just needs to like greenand bear it or just endure for a
little while to keep their job?
Harv Nagra (17:49):
I thought it was interesting that this
question Galen, because whenan organization is not very
mature and they're startingup, or they've stayed in that
kind of startup mode too long.
There's a lot of blendingof roles and there's no
clear definition of rolesand everyone's juggling
five different things.
You might be an accountmanager that has some HR
responsibilities or theMD is a bit of operations
(18:12):
and a bit of accountingand things like that, and.
You have to do abit of everything.
So it's also interesting thatit's coming now also because
of the economic pressuresor downsizing or other kind
of changes leading to that.
Not just because of the maturityof the organization, but I've
seen this in the past and I wasin one of those organizations
(18:35):
myself where I had to stepup and say, okay, that thing
is broken and due to my kindof, what do I call it, like
my personality and lack ofsatisfaction with seeing
something broken, that's justcausing endless frustration.
Just being like, okay, there'sno one responsible for that.
I'm gonna step in and fix thatthing and just sort it out,
(18:56):
and I continued to do thatand over time, that turned
into I realized that I wasreally good at that stuff.
And I wanted to do more of it.
And I liked doing that morethan the client delivery stuff.
So it was like I was a digitalproducer and digital director,
and over both of those kindof job titles, I was doing
more and more of this stuffthat had to do with operations
(19:17):
until I was like, okay, weneed an operations director.
And I feel like I'm doing twodifferent jobs and I wanna
make a case for pursuing that.
I think you're exactly right.
There's a challenge there thatyou don't wanna sacrifice what
your core duties are, so youwanna make sure that you're
being absolutely honest andsaying, Hey, i've got this
stuff that I need to deliverfor the client, and if I'm
doing all this additional, it'seither gonna have to be out
(19:39):
of hours or my main projectrequirements are gonna slip and
then that's gonna have a knockon effect and things like that.
But I think it's absolutelya great opportunity.
Hopefully whatever you'retaking on has a nice overlap
or a nice extension in thelogical extension of your core
duties, so it becomes a branch.
Galen, like I think aboutmy early career when I
first graduated university.
(20:01):
I felt like I was in thismultidisciplinary program that
did everything from like graphicdesign, web design, animation,
film, interaction design,all these kinds of things.
And I was like graduatedthinking like what do I do now?
I'm not super goodat any of them.
I know how to do a bitof everything, right?
And so I went and did a bit moredigital marketing training and
(20:22):
that's how I started my career.
But what I found is that at thestage I'm at in my career now,
being a jack of all trades backthen felt like a liability and
I can't do anything with this.
Whereas now I feel likethat's the superpower is wow.
Over time I'm still a jack ofall trades, but now that means
I'm an operations directorand I can do all these things.
(20:43):
I can go produce podcasts.
I can run training sessions.
I can, sort out people'sprocesses and I've got a
point of view on technologyand stuff like that.
So I think absolutely don'tshut down those opportunities.
Learn as much as you can, andover time, over the course of
your career, all this stuff justbecomes like tools in your tool
belt that make you more and moreof a unicorn, which just makes
(21:04):
you that much more valuable.
I think it's a great opportunityas long as you're able to not
exhaust yourself in the process.
Having those boundaries andmaking sure your kind of key
priorities are still beingaddressed at your client
delivery responsibilitiesand all that kind of stuff.
Galen Low (21:20):
I really like that 'cause it's like almost like
the art of stepping up, notjust being like, cool, I'll
step up and do this thing andmy other job, but, and maybe do
neither well, but being clear,with the organization you're
working at to say, listen.
I'm willing to stepup and step into this.
It interests me.
I'm gonna be good atit, but also I need help
balancing to make surethat I can do both well.
(21:40):
And I do agree with youthat yeah, I think you and
I both, I think coming up,like we wore a lot of hats.
Wearing a lot ofhats was normal.
And a lot of the conversationsI'm having, like I did a
post on LinkedIn, I'm like,is this the new normal?
And they're like, whenwas it not the new normal?
Because like we've been doingthis our entire careers.
But I think there was aperiod of time where, we're
deeply specializing and Ithink you know, for the deep
(22:00):
specialists, I applaud you.
I think it's still veryrelevant, but I think the
opportunities are gonna befewer and further between.
And like the way that AI andthe economy is pushing the
workforce, I do think like anopportunity to do more than
one job in a balanced waycan really open some doors.
And to your point, you said likeyou are like, listen, this role
needs to be a permanent role.
(22:21):
I want it.
In other words, it wasn't justthrust upon you, you had agency
in it and it actually gaveyou a path to go, do I want to
go back to being a producer?
Or do I want to go tobecome an ops director?
And it gave you thatexposure without having
to like jump ship.
Imagine just like taking on afull-time ops director role.
Where, there wasn't any sortof like bridge in between.
(22:44):
I think that'd be a lottrickier of a transition.
Harv Nagra (22:46):
Totally.
I was just looking away for amoment because this reminded
me of a book I'm listening toan audio book called Range:
Why Generalists Triumphin a Specialized World.
So I'm only on the secondchapter so I'm not very far
in, but I am quite excitedto read this book 'cause
it talks about exactlywhat we're talking about.
Having a lot of skills andexperimenting and it just
(23:08):
makes you in the long term, itmakes you even more successful.
So that's really interesting.
I wanted to point out likeGalen, if you don't mind,
like a couple of examples ofwhere I was taking on some
of those responsibilities.
One of those was as digitalproducer, like again, working
in an organization that wasn'tsuper mature, didn't have a very
good onboarding process or evenlike a tech onboarding process.
(23:29):
So I remember freelancers comingin and being sat at an iMac
that had literally like hundredsof files on the desktop.
And I would just sit therebeing like a bit embarrassed,
being like, oh my God, they'regonna be like, where the hell?
But not just freelancers,but full-timers, it's just
so terrible of an experienceto have someone else's
login name on your, what'smeant to be your computer.
(23:51):
So I started volunteeringto be like, you know what,
let me sort that out.
I'm gonna reset these Macsbefore somebody starts.
And then it was like at somepoint they all had not enough
ram, so I upgraded like thefleet of computers and sorted
out the getting fiber internet.
And then at some pointit was like, we've got
multiple entities, office inSwitzerland, France, and the
uk and we're not collaboratingenough with these colleagues.
(24:12):
So maybe a bit of show and tell.
So back in the day, set uplike an intranet for the
organization so we couldhave a central place to go
share what we're working on.
Also have a central placeto document some of this
stuff about ways of workingand stuff like that.
And other examples arelike you might have to
do a bit of marketing.
Social media marketing, whichwas my least favorite thing
to be added to my plate andsometimes even shoved towards
(24:34):
me as operations director youhave to plug in those gaps when
there's nobody else doing it.
Yeah.
And it was like, oh my God,I do not wanna do this social
media strategy for the business.
But yeah.
Anyway, there's certain thingsthat you might enjoy and certain
things that you have to do fora little bit, but hopefully
you can hand those over.
Yeah, good opportunity.
Sorry to go on that tangent.
Galen Low (24:54):
No, I think it's really good.
A, I'm gonna find a link to thatbook "Range" and I'll include
it in the show notes 'causethat sounds really interesting.
And, and not a lot of ourlisteners are probably like,
wow, Harv was like P-M-I-T-H-RFinance marketing guy.
But what's interestingthough is that in a way,
those were all projects.
They were projects you took on.
(25:14):
And that was almost theway you metered them.
And I like the fact thatyou're like, sometimes you're
gonna have to do somethingthat isn't fun that you
probably didn't want to do.
Even for something like socialmedia marketing though, are
you like, yeah, I hate this,but I'm gonna learn something.
Or is it I'm just gonnado this, but as soon as I
can get it off my plate...
Harv Nagra (25:30):
I'm rolling my eyes.
That was, yeah, coming upwith a content calendar
was not my highlight.
There was probably a point whereI did enjoy it a little bit.
I think you recognizeyour strengths, right?
And from my, my, my backgroundwith like tech and like process
and stuff like that, it wasalways the systems stuff and
the training and the tech.
(25:51):
That got me really excitedversus having to juggle
like responsibilitiesfor social media.
Galen Low (25:57):
Oh, I like the way you're looking at it
'cause you're like, I'lldo this for now, but this
is not the one I'm keeping.
This is the one I'm gonna learn.
It's gonna be fun.
And then as it gets lessfun, I'm gonna hand it off.
But it's your way of likegetting exposure to things.
Harv Nagra (26:08):
Totally.
And if there's any kind oflike leaders, business leaders
listening to this I think it'salso important to recognize
that there's a little bit ofthis that you can encourage your
team to do to grow their skills.
If you're trying to run abusiness where everyone's
juggling multiple hats inareas that is not really their
passion and their interest ifpeople are gonna leave, right?
And it's just not, what youwanna do is have a project
(26:30):
manager being part-time,like social media marketer
and someone juggling HR andoperations as a side job.
It's not sustainablein the long run.
So you want to try to makesure you've got internal
facing roles and clearroles and responsibilities
for people as well.
Galen Low (26:48):
I love that.
And actually, while we're onthe business maturity train,
because I know it's a topicthat you like to dig into.
The other side of the coin,I guess I'd say, right?
So in some cases with, in thisjob market, in this economy,
project managers are maybefinding themselves shifting
into other organizations.
And in some cases and Ilove saying this because I'm
like, I know so many peoplein my network doing this
(27:09):
right now, but in some cases,they are moving from a big
organization to somethingthat's smaller and younger and
fundamentally just like lessmature of an organization.
To your point where you'relike, you're used to really
clean onboarding and then youget there and you're like,
cool, I'm excited, but also mylogin is the last employee's
name, and you're like, Ugh.
(27:30):
We talked before about,advocating what project
manager role could do.
I'd love your take on, justlike what should someone in
that situation be advocatingfor it to make sure that they
have what they need to like dotheir job well, like how can
they spot gaps and then likeescalate operational issues
in a constructive way, right?
They're like their firstcouple months on the job and
(27:50):
they're like, everything'sbroken, everything sucks.
What is the right way to do it?
Harv Nagra (27:55):
That's a tricky situation to be in, and
I don't know if there'sa perfect answer to that.
But the first thing I'd say is,you're right, I do love talking
about operational maturityand business maturity models.
So go look that up.
I, it's something that I'vetalked about my podcast and had
webinars on and stuff like that,so I'm sure you'll find content
with me talking about it.
But these businessing modelstend to have five stages, right?
(28:16):
Galen, like on one end youare in that make stuff up as
you go stage where everyone'sjust flying by the seat of
their pants and it's not ideal.
It can be fun if it's the firstcouple years and you're like,
everyone's just about winningbusiness and stuff like that.
But you don't wantto get stuck in that.
And sometimes businessesdo, like the MD, the
CEO just doesn't havethat business acumen.
(28:37):
Or even though awareness thatthings should run better.
And they're like 10, 11years in and it's like
still running like that.
That's terrible.
On the other end of thescale, like stage five is like
super efficient, continuousimprovement in place and
you're really innovating.
But I think the most interestingthing is like stage three.
I call this the stable era.
You end up having likecentralized, documented
(28:59):
best practice, which helpsyou onboard people really
efficiently and train people anda place where people can go and
reference how to do that thing.
Not to say that it's superrigid and it's a tick box thing
that you have to do this exactthing, but it's documented.
The agency or the businesshas a point of view about
this is best practice.
Of course now go use yourintuition to adapt this
(29:21):
to your project needsor your client needs and
stuff like that, right?
At this stage, you also havereally good tools in place,
and those tools, in my pointof view, they tend to be
deeply automated, is whatyou wanna be looking for.
So at those more maturestages, level one and level
two, might be creatingquotes in the spreadsheet.
You might be creatingproject plans and Smartsheet.
(29:41):
You might be time sheeting inlike harvest, and then trying
to reconcile your budgetsand spreadsheets and goal
sheets and stuff like that.
And it's all a bit disjointed.
Again, first couple of stages ofbusiness maturity, that's fine,
but at some point as you'regrowing and your head count is
increasing and your projectsare getting more complex.
That is not sustainable becauseyou spend loads of time copying
(30:03):
data from one place to anotherand it wastes time and it's
not accurate and everything'salways slightly out of date
and you don't know how yourprojects are performing,
let alone your business.
So I think it's reallyimportant at that stage that
you have, like your businesshas deeply automated and
connected this stuff, so theinformation flows better.
You mentioned at the beginning,I worked for a company
called Scoro, and it's oneof these platforms that
house all that functionalitybaked into one place.
(30:25):
It's called the ProfessionalServices Automation Platform.
So that's also somethingthat you could do is have
something like that in place.
So I think that's really key.
But beyond this, I think,like I was alluding to
a few minutes ago, it'snot just delivery people.
Your business should haveinternal facing roles,
which is super important.
So you have an operationsdirector, you have a finance
director, you have a resourcemanager and stuff like that.
(30:47):
So there's people inplace to create controls.
So that it's not just andI've worked in places where
it's basically everyone isexternal facing and that's where
everyone is juggling side jobs.
And at some point youstart pulling out your
hair and be like, this isnot gonna work any longer.
Other things to lookout for is that you're
measuring performanceof your organization.
(31:07):
So that comes back to the toolsagain, that your tools are able
to let you see how things aregoing and what's coming up.
So you have a bit of anidea that, are you gonna
have the capacity totake on more work or not?
Or is your teamgonna be burnt out?
Are you gonna have thesales that you're expecting
to keep everyone busy?
All that kind of stuff.
So those are things to look forand I would again, encourage
(31:28):
people to go check out thisbusiness maturity stuff and
some of the stuff I've talkedabout, or reach out to me
if you wanna hear more aboutit, see if those roles are in
place, is there an ops director?
And if not, then thatmight be a challenge.
But there might be somebodythat's juggling that and there's
an internal champion already.
It might be the head of deliveryor the senior account director
or somebody that's having todo that as their side job.
(31:50):
So make friends with them.
And be like, oh, interesting.
So you're having to do this.
Is there, is thereanything I can help with?
I've seen it work likethis in my past business.
Is that something you guyshave discussed before?
And maybe start plantingthe seeds a little bit.
Also Galen I think you and Ihave the privilege of creating
resources for people inbusinesses like that, right?
(32:13):
So encourage your leaders,if they don't listen to
The Digital Project Managerpodcast or the Handbook, they
just the operations podcastto say, oh, you know what?
I listen to thispodcast, I noticed it's
not something we do.
You might wanna listento that conversation.
So that's a way to plantthe seed and get the
conversation flowing.
And it might not changeovernight, but at least you're
(32:34):
starting that ball rolling andthen you can start to see if
there's kind of things that youwant to, and you're able to,
and you're excited about kind ofplugging some gaps and getting
some experience along the way.
Galen Low (32:46):
I love that.
I wasn't even thinkingabout it in that direction
as it relates to the otherquestion, but like yeah.
Like in some cases, this isan opportunity if you came
from a larger organization,maybe there were a four or a
five on the maturity scale.
You're coming down tosomething that is, one A you
could probably see prettyquickly if the owners and
operators there are like Yeah,but that's what makes us.
(33:07):
Like we are never gonnamature 'cause we are the micro
agency that doesn't do what,a maturity five would do ever.
And you're like, okay, andmaybe that's fine, but also
you know what you're in for.
Versus like that excitement ofbeing like, you know what, I can
actually help this organizationget from one to three.
And I'm finding that exciting.
Whereas when you're at afour or a five or a larger
agency and you're like.
(33:27):
That's that person's job, right?
I don't do resourcemanagement, I don't do finance.
I don't do ops.
Somebody already has thatrole, but suddenly you can
come at it from the otherway and say, actually,
that's interesting, and Iunderstand the reasons why.
Now, it's not just thestructure that's in place,
the structure that wasbuilt for a reason, right?
To give business morepredictability and more insight.
More repeatability.
(33:48):
It's to, inspire growth.
It's to do more actually,but like more fun cool
things with more fun coolpeople in a lot of cases.
And to actually be like, okay,actually maybe there is a way
I can explore and nestle myway into something that isn't
just me, leaping into a newjob because the job market
is tough, could actually bequite a cool opportunity.
Harv Nagra (34:09):
Yeah, definitely.
And I think there's somany resources out there.
So find those communities likeDPM or the Handbook or whatever,
and take that opportunity to belistening and learning stuff so
that you can introduce thingsyourself or like I said, plant
the seeds and things like that.
It is a really good careeropportunity if you're interested
(34:30):
in in evolving your careerin a really helpful way.
Instead of complaining aboutthat thing, try and go fix it.
Galen Low (34:37):
Yeah.
I like the Scoro thing too,and the professional services
automation thing becausein some ways, it's not new.
But I think for a lotof agencies of a certain
size or organizations ofa certain size, it's new.
Do you know what I mean?
Like they hadn't reallythought about it.
And I like that notion of beinglike, cool Hey, you should
give this a listen just becausejust opening the aperture
on, the art of the possible.
(34:57):
It's yeah, like there's thisthing, I was listening to this
podcast and yeah, it mightbe worth exploring because it
might not have been a thing thatoccurred to an organization that
is trying to get to level fouror five maturity in the model,
Harv Nagra (35:09):
and on, on that specific point, like if people
listening to this are agencies,we often don't think of our
ourselves as professionalservices businesses like you
call yourself a agency orconsultancy, not professional
services business, so somethingthat's called professional
services automation.
It's what the hell is that?
I've never heard of that.
So yeah, it doesn't comenaturally, but it is just
important to know what'sout there and there's
(35:31):
kind of separate tools.
Then you can have automationbaked in and do this
kind of deep integration.
Native integrations, youcan use APIs to build
connections to things.
You can use Zapier to buildconnections between apps and
stuff like that, but thenthere's also tools that have
that full workflow in a singleplace, and that's what a PSA is.
But anyway, that was a bitof a tangent, but I just.
Galen Low (35:52):
No, I like that because I think, you're right.
I think a lot of agencies,they use tons of tools.
Like we did a survey a year orso ago about how many tools each
individual within an agency isusing, and it's it's above 20.
And people love them.
That's the way they, havereliably been able to
deliver and they don'twant it to go away.
So they don't want some big,enormous software to come
and take over all the things.
(36:13):
They wanna wait for it toglue together so that it's
cohesive, that the data'saccurate, that no one's
copying, pasting anything.
It's the dream.
Harv Nagra (36:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
Galen Low (36:22):
I wonder if we can look a bit into the future
because, I know you're bigon agency ops, operating
models and structures.
I'm just wondering whatpredictions do you have for
agencies in the coming year?
Are the big agencies gonna keepgetting bigger and bulkier?
Are the micro agenciesgonna get, I don't
know, even more micro?
Will every agency teammember be a freelancer?
(36:43):
And what can agencies doto prepare for the future
that you see unfolding?
Harv Nagra (36:47):
We're starting with a really hard
question and ending witha really hard question.
It's so hard to say Galen like,when we're recording this is
just off the back of the tariffsbeing introduced last week and
the chaos and confusion that'scausing and I think initial
instinct for anybody working inlike an agency or something like
that was, we're service-based,so we're safe, but ultimately
(37:08):
our clients are the brandsand the products that pay for
marketing and outsource projectsand all that kind of stuff.
So ultimately it willhave an impact on us.
So there's just that wholekind of chaotic thing that we
don't know what's happening.
So there's just a degree ofhaving to be flexible and
roll with whatever comes.
But I think that goes back towhat I was saying, is having
(37:30):
to operate in a really smart,nimble way where you're not
wasting resources and you'rebeing super efficient, right?
So if you're planning thingsin a way that you know that
there's not gonna be freelancerssitting there for half day
waiting for their projects.
That is not a good way to runyour business and not having
the visibility about whetheryou've got the capacity or you
don't have the capacity to takeon work and stuff like that.
(37:53):
So making sure you're inthat kind of state, and I'm
probably stating a bit of theobvious here, but I think us
relying on AI in more and moreinteresting and creative ways
is gonna be really exciting.
I find myself month on month,just, spending more and more
time even on like ChatGPTis just, it's so interesting
the kind of ideation andkind of the results you can
(38:17):
get just sitting with itfor a while and and having
that kind of conversation.
So I think in terms of headcountgrowth, I wonder if that's
gonna stabilize and stay fairlyconsistent, but we're just
gonna become more efficientand capable within the team
sizes that we have, which isquite cool 'cause then we can
do more and charge more, butkeep the same size head counts.
(38:40):
To prepare, I'd say, getyour operating model right.
Think about all those things,the people, the processes, the
tools, the data that you'rerelying on to make sure all
of that's in a good place.
If you have any influence orlike I said, plant those seeds
with your leadership team tomake sure they're doing it.
And then stayefficient and flexible.
Keep your ear out intowhat's happening and keep
experimenting and sharing thatknowledge in your monthly all
(39:02):
hands and stuff like that.
Giving people an opportunity toshare and inspire one another.
All that kind of stuff, becausewe just need to be able to pivot
really quickly and roll with it.
If you're too rigid, that'swhen trouble happens because
you're just, you're hunkeringdown on what it's like today
or what it was like lastyear and you're not ready
(39:23):
for what's gonna happen next.
Galen Low (39:25):
I totally agree.
I think, so much ofit is about agility.
It becomes a bitmore scientific now.
Where we can't necessarilyafford to not be as
efficient as we can be.
And that's gonnatake some effort.
It's gonna take somesmart decisions.
It gonna, it's gonna takesmart planning and it's gonna
be looking at the data as wego to see, where it's going.
(39:47):
I know that makes it hard forlong-term planning, that's the
boat that our clients are in.
That's the boat, the wholeworld's in right now.
It's an opportunity toinnovate, to adapt, and
to make your way through.
Harv Nagra (39:57):
Definitely.
Galen Low (39:58):
Awesome.
Harv, thank you so much forspending the time with me today.
I really enjoyedthis conversation.
Again, for folks listening,Harv and I have the first
bit of this conversation onhis podcast, the Handbook.
I'll link it in theshow notes below.
And yeah, I think overallwhat an interesting POV.
Thank you again, Harv somuch for your insights.
Looking forward tocollaborating more soon.
Harv Nagra (40:19):
Absolute pleasure, Galen.
Thanks so much for having me.
Galen Low (40:22):
Alright folks, there you have it.
As always, if you'd like tojoin the conversation with
over a thousand like-mindedproject management champions,
come join our collective!Head on over to
thedpm.com/membershipto learn more.
And if you like what youheard today, please subscribe
and stay in touch onthedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
You have a new job title!
Congratulations.
You also still haveyour old job title.
And your team is half thesize it was last week.
And you're being told thebusiness model is shifting to
meet the demands of the market.
And you're starting to worry.
Disruption is a fickle beast.
On the one hand, itis destabilizing and
(00:21):
pretty stressful.
But on the other hand, it cancreate opportunities as business
models evolve in response.
This is exactly what'shappening in the agency
world right this very second.
And unfortunately, it'sjust one of those things
where there will be winnersand there will be losers.
So if you're looking for tipson how to stay resilient and
set yourself up to thrivewithin evolving agency operating
(00:43):
models, keep listening.
We're gonna be getting thelow-down on exactly how agency
operating models are changingand what you can do as a project
team leader to support yourteams while also positioning
yourself as an adaptable,growth-minded tour-de-force.
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in.
(01:04):
My name is Galen Low withThe Digital Project Manager.
We are a community of digitalprofessionals on a mission
to help each other getskilled, get confident, and
get connected so that we canamplify the value of project
management in a digital world.
If you wanna hear moreabout that, head on over
to thedpm.com/membership.
And if you're intofuture-looking conversations
and practical insights arounddigital project leadership,
(01:26):
consider subscribing to thisshow for weekly episodes.
Alright, today we are talkingabout changing agency operating
models and how projectmanagers can help their teams
and themselves survive andthrive as the floor tiles
shift underneath their feet.
With me today is Harv Nagra— agency operations specialist,
(01:46):
Head of Brand Communicationsat Scoro, and the host of The
Handbook (01:49):
Agency Ops podcast.
Harv, thanks for beingwith me today, man.
Harv Nagra (01:53):
Absolute pleasure, Galen.
I'm really glad to be here.
And of course, you've justcome off our show as well,
so really exciting to dothis collaboration with you.
Galen Low (02:01):
I love a good podcast swap.
So for our listeners, thisis actually the second part
of a conversation that Harvand I started on his podcast.
So for the full POV, checkthe link in the show notes
and give it a listen.
I'm not sure yet if itmatters whether you listen
to this one first or not.
Harv Nagra (02:17):
We'll, I think either order works well.
Galen Low (02:20):
And of course, if you are someone who's listening
who is into agency ops, considersubscribing to Harv's podcast.
It's called The Handbook.
It's incredible.
It's casual.
It's kind of like this one.
It's a lot of fun and Ithink it's great for just
getting that perspective.
Even if you are not anoperations person, heck,
even if you're not anagency person, I think it
gives a lot of perspectiveon business maturity,
(02:42):
operations, how stuff works,how stuff can work better.
I thought maybe I would startwith the juicy question.
Let me give us a runway.
So I feel like there's alot of change afoot right
now with the economy.
It's like driving like somevery talented people in my
network into the layoff wagon.
And also agencies arerestructuring in hopes that
(03:04):
they can do a little more, orat least as much with less.
We've got AI disruptingknowledge work left and right,
and many full-time roles arejust kinda like moving to
fractional and freelance roles.
My question is, what can agencydelivery teams do to rally and
be resilient and to support oneanother through all this change?
Harv Nagra (03:24):
There is so much happening.
But first of all, Galen you'rethrowing me off on the deep
end with the hardest questionjust to start off anyway.
Galen Low (03:31):
How do we fix the world, Harv?
Harv Nagra (03:32):
Yeah.
How do we fix the world?
There is so much change though,Galen, like it is a stressful
time, like you're saying,layoffs for a couple years, the
market's been quite difficult.
And then the whole AI thingand scary things happening in
the economy with tariffs andall that kind of fun stuff.
So yeah it is terrifying.
But I think the most successfulteams that I've ever worked
(03:53):
in, like one of thosethings is culture, really.
Psychological safety is aterm that comes to mind.
So I think the most flexible,adaptable, successful
teams really like eachother, first of all.
So making sure that leadershipor building a culture where
people can turn to one anotherfor advice, ensuring that
people aren't afraid to admitareas that they need to learn
(04:16):
in or are weaker for them sothat other people can help
fill that gap, or that youcan jointly go on a mission
to go find those skillsor bring in experts to it.
Teach you how to do certainthings or whatever it might
be, because we can't overcomethese challenges alone.
Like we're notmeant to be silos.
That's not the purposeof an organization.
So we do have to rely oneach other, and you need
(04:38):
that connection to keep youmotivated and you need some
clarity and a point of viewfrom the organization's
perspective about where you'reheaded, how you're gonna be
adopting all these tools, andhow you're gonna be navigating
some of these challenges.
So making sure thatcommunication is super clear.
And it's not being likeclose to the chest so
that no one really knows.
That would be like aterrible thing to do.
(04:58):
So I think culture is thefirst thing that comes to mind.
And then secondly,I'm an ops sky, right?
So I'm gonna be biased, but Ithink it's genuinely true that
great operations is so critical.
You just can't be running areally successful business if
you're always winging it, right?
There's a degree of course.
Adaptability and flexibilitythat is so important
(05:20):
to being successful.
But I think you can't justbe always making it up.
You can't be relying on peopleoverextending themselves to
make sure that you're creatingthis kind of impression to your
clients that things are beingheld together well, behind
the scenes is absolute chaos.
That's not a resilient business.
So you have to be operating ina more mature way, making sure
(05:42):
that your teams are structuredthe way you deliver your work.
You've got a methodology, yourprocesses, the tools, the way
you analyze your data so thatyou're not wasting resource, and
you're able to measure resultsand also forecast what's coming.
So all of that points togood operations and operating
in a more mature way.
Galen Low (06:03):
I love those anchors because like a,
the first thing he saysis like, learning, right?
And like being willing andhaving that culture to be
like, cool, we don't knoweverything because A, maybe
we're, we talked about thisin our conversation too.
Maybe you're being asked totake on more responsibilities
in an area that is notyour sort of core skillset.
Maybe you're learningnew AI tools, right?
Everything's different now.
We all have to be able to say,yeah, nobody knows everything
(06:25):
and let's figure it out.
So the anchor point oflearning, I love the anchor
point of just like direction.
And I think so many folksare getting this wrong
because they're like, wedon't know where we're
going, so let's say nothing.
But you're moving,you're doing something,
you're trying something.
And I think thatvisibility can help a lot.
And then I like that ideathat yeah, a lot of folks
are gonna try and fly bythe seat of their pants.
(06:45):
Right now, because thatfeels like all you can do.
Like even just like regularpeople outside of agency, right?
Like, how am I gonna pickmy groceries this week?
Bringing stability to it throughoperations if I'm picking
up what you're putting down,like agile, nimble operations.
It's like cool, we're not gonnarewrite every SOP starting now
until like third quarter 2026.
What can we do now toanchor this, to put this on
(07:05):
rails so that we are stilldelivering predictably,
that we are documenting whatis changing and that we're
not just pretending thateverything's business as usual.
We're like buildinga new machine.
We're iterating on it.
Harv Nagra (07:16):
Absolutely.
It's like iterating regularly.
So whether it's like quarter,there's just milestones.
I think annuallyis a big milestone.
Quarterly is a milestone, butthings are changing so fast
right now that even on a monthlybasis, you just have to be like
sticking your head above thework and whatever's happening.
And making sure that whateveryou're doing is still fit
for purpose and it doesn'tneed a different kind of
(07:38):
point of view or an approach.
Galen Low (07:40):
Can we dig into that a little bit?
Because I love gettingpractical, tactical.
I know my listenersare going, cool.
What does that meeting like,what does that monthly meeting
look like where we're gonnarevisit ops and ops changes.
Harv Nagra (07:51):
I think what I used to do is we used to have in
my agency a monthly All hands,and it was, first of all,
we had a really fun format.
Like all hands can be,feel very corporate and dry
agencies are fun places.
And we decided that we weregonna have fun with it.
So there was a lot of music andvideo and stuff like that in it.
(08:11):
So first of all, that wasquite an engaging moment
to get everyone reallymotivated about the mission.
But there's a couple things thatI did during those all hands.
One was operationally I wouldlook at the tools that we're
using our systems and see ifthere's any changes that the
product had come out withthat we needed to share so
(08:32):
that there was a new, easier,better way to do something.
Number two was it was anopportunity to reinforce skills
that people may have forgot,or that me as the operations
director or my colleague asthe finance director, would
be like, oh my God, peopleare forgetting this thing.
We need to reinforce that.
So it was that moment,but also a moment to
like share skills, right?
There's loads of new AI toolscoming out on a monthly basis.
(08:54):
So it'd be, sometimes it'dbe like working with the UX
designers to say, Hey, could yougive a session to our team on
how you're using these new kindof AI wire framing platform?
So just paint the picture.
And I remember like when Fireflyor whatever it was, Adobe came
out with this kind of you promptit to delete something off a
picture or whatever it was, ordrop box around it or something.
(09:16):
I remember now that's likesecond nature to us in a matter
of months, but like at somepoint it was like, holy crap,
that used to take us ages toPhotoshop that out and now it's
draw a circle around it andtell it to disappear, right?
So taking those moments toreinforce new skills, introduce
new tools, but also look atthe way you're working and
see if it needs to pivot.
(09:37):
But I think super importantwith that is not just to
present it, but to go back toyour handbook or whatever it
is and document that so peoplecan reference it afterwards.
And it's not all based onmemory from what happened in
the all hands two months ago.
Galen Low (09:49):
I love the reinforcement bit and then just
like the cross training, likeyou could be in that town hall
and not be someone who does wireframe anything and kind of start
understanding how you can fitthose puzzle pieces together.
It's inspiring, it's crosstraining and so much of learning
these new tools is just likefeeling comfortable with the
idea that you're not alone.
You're not the only one doingthis, you're not doing the wrong
thing, and like wasting time.
(10:11):
And then I love the kindof follow up, right?
That's okay, cool.
This is where we ask questionsand correct and tilt, but
actually we want, it's to gentlypush people on a certain course
and then help them along thatpath as well, so that the ops
stay relevant, that peopleare using the tools properly.
They know it's possible.
Harv Nagra (10:29):
Yep.
And back to that pointabout introducing certain
tools might not be relevantto everyone, right?
Like the UX wire framingtool or whatever.
Absolutely true.
But it also establishes thatword organization that is
learning and experimentingand it encourages other
people to do that intheir own kind of realms.
And the following month theycould be the ones presenting
the account manager's approachto AI or whatever it is.
(10:51):
So it's really cool tofeed off the energy and
make everyone feel thatyou're in an organization
that's moving forward.
Galen Low (10:58):
It's funny 'cause you started with culture and
like you can see a lot of peoplestruggle with culture and they
try and fabricate it, but likeexactly what you just said is
yeah, we create this form thatdemonstrates our values, right?
That we're changing, that we'reinnovative, that, we talk to
one another and this is notlike the dry town hall where
we push information at you.
It's fun.
There's, not every agencyculture is gonna be like, yes,
(11:18):
music and fun and everything,but honestly I think it's
a good way of doing it.
Harv Nagra (11:21):
Absolutely.
Galen Low (11:22):
I wonder if I could zoom out a bit.
So for folks who don't knowHarv, your background is
in agency operations, butyou've also had almost all
the roles under like theagency ops umbrella, from
project manager to marketingspecialist to senior digital
producer to group directorof operations and I think
it just gives you this likereally interesting perspective,
(11:43):
like from the front lines.
As well as like fromthe command center.
And we're talking aboutevolving agency models,
things like changing aroundus, operating models and
business maturity and all thatstuff that I know you love.
I'm just wondering, whatare some of the evolutions
that you see in agencyoperating models today?
And what in your opinion,should agency leaders be
(12:04):
doing to support theirdelivery teams as the business
like adapts to change?
Harv Nagra (12:09):
Step back a moment and first just shout
out the fact that, severalyears ago, or even a few years
ago, I feel like operationsin general in terms of an
organization that was somethingmaybe the biggest agencies
had people in place for.
And it wasn't really somethingthat I felt was very talked
about, so I didn't evenknow it was a career path
perhaps, or that it, it wasa role that was available.
(12:31):
Other than that, I was thereplugging some gaps as a producer
or as the digital directorand juggling responsibilities
and stuff like that.
So that's the bigger picturechange that I've seen is
operations being taken seriouslyand being talked about more,
which is super important Ithink, for all of us to be
running smarter businesses orworking in smarter businesses.
(12:52):
And of course I think,COVID ushered in the whole
remote working, hybridworking thing, so a lot
of change came with that.
But I see a lot moreexperimentation Galen
with staffing models.
And I'm sure you talked aboutthis on your podcast quite often
is like beyond just freelancers,fractional support coming in,
people bringing in outsideexperts, offshoring nearshoring,
(13:12):
having fully remote teams.
And there's also thesekind of new services.
I can't call them new servicesanymore 'cause they've
been around for years now.
But design as a service whereyou can just hire somebody
for a set fee and they yousend all your requirements to
them and they go and executeand send it back to you.
So there's a lot ofchange happening in
that kind of regard.
I think the challenge isprobably around a lot of
(13:35):
things, but one of them Ithink is how this dilutes
the company culture.
When you have all thesekind of fractional or
outside people coming inand constantly rotating
is, what does that mean?
There's already been a challengewith remote and hybrid teams
and how that dilutes companyculture and not everyone has
fully understood how to tacklethat and how to make sure that
(13:57):
you're operating in this kindof remote first way and making
sure that it's super inclusiveand that you're ensuring that
people have that same experienceand opportunities when they're
working from home or remotely.
But figuring out how toonboard people and collaborate
people with the right waywhen they're in these kind of
fractional roles are coming inat odd moments and making sure
(14:17):
you're maintaining the kindof standards and the quality
that you expect of yourself.
So I think those are someof the challenges and some
of the changes I've seen.
Galen Low (14:25):
No, that's a huge change and we're seeing that
in the community as well.
A lot of folks in the projectmanagement world switching
to freelance work becausethere's more opportunities
available to them.
There is this sort of shiftin full-time employment
versus fractional.
And even if you aren't makingthat shift, then the team
that you're working with mightactually be made up of that.
Like the design asa service thing.
(14:45):
Like I actually, I'mnot too up on that.
And it sounds like it would takea whole different sort of set
of skills, different playbookreally, to be managing that, to
be, having that, anyone who'sdone like a full waterfall
style project when you'retrying to get every requirement.
Documented and detailedupfront so that you can
send it off and it doesn'tchange and you get the thing
(15:07):
back the way you wanted it.
It's almost like reaching backinto that grab bag of okay,
we need to be, like we needto bolster our documents,
requirements process.
Because we spent all these yearsgetting a little more agile and
going, Hey, do you like this?
Here's an MVP,should we change it?
And then suddenly yourteam, you're like, okay,
I don't have my freelancerfor the entire project, just
for the first three weeks.
That's all we couldafford in the budget.
(15:27):
We need to change theway we're working.
And I love that notionthat yeah, we just need to
go in, eyes open, right?
With the fact that remotework and remote first is a
thing that requires attention,that you know our projects
are gonna run differently.
And really swinging back tothe importance of ops, the
importance of nimble ops sothat this is also supported,
(15:47):
not just make it up as we go.
Maybe we're making it upas we go, but we're also
trying to make it moreuniform, more predictable,
more stable, and honestlybetter for the business.
Harv Nagra (15:56):
Totally.
Back in the old days,like now, it's like over
five years ago, right?
But you could look overyour shoulder at someone's
screen or just talk toyour peer next door and ask
them how to do something.
And it is not as possible.
You have to message themon Slack or Teams or
whatever it is, or jump ina Huddle or call or schedule
something so that knowledgesharing is not as fluid.
(16:20):
And those conversations,there's a hurdle because you're
not constantly just able totalk out loud to somebody.
You have to send that message.
So I, I think that's wherethose kind of having that, a
bit of documentation and allof that stuff centrally where
people can access it and theyknow the way the company and
the organization, the projectsare meant to run so they
(16:41):
have something to reference.
But of course, encouraging thatconversation to make sure people
get the no nuance from thepeople they need to speak to.
Galen Low (16:48):
I love that.
If I'm understanding thatcorrectly, there's this
sort of like ops layer thatcan help support in terms
of like culture, values,ways of working systems.
And then there will also bethis sort of like cool, but
also you're plugging intothis team as a freelancer and
here's the, like they havetheir own sort of team culture
ways of working, differentproject requirements and
they needed different things.
(17:08):
So that's where you'regonna get that as well.
Harv Nagra (17:10):
Absolutely.
Galen Low (17:11):
It's cool.
I like that.
We talked a bit about thisin our conversation on your
podcast, but I wanna digin a little bit because one
thing that our communityis seeing a lot of is just
like this increase in whatI'm calling role blending.
Where like a role that wasonce a singular full-time
position is now expectedto wear an additional hat
to serve some changes tothe business strategy.
(17:32):
Do you see this as maybe apotential opportunity for
like career growth as in couldthis become a role transition?
Or in your eyes from an opsstandpoint, would this more
be like a cost savings measurethat an agency project manager
maybe just needs to like greenand bear it or just endure for a
little while to keep their job?
Harv Nagra (17:49):
I thought it was interesting that this
question Galen, because whenan organization is not very
mature and they're startingup, or they've stayed in that
kind of startup mode too long.
There's a lot of blendingof roles and there's no
clear definition of rolesand everyone's juggling
five different things.
You might be an accountmanager that has some HR
responsibilities or theMD is a bit of operations
(18:12):
and a bit of accountingand things like that, and.
You have to do abit of everything.
So it's also interesting thatit's coming now also because
of the economic pressuresor downsizing or other kind
of changes leading to that.
Not just because of the maturityof the organization, but I've
seen this in the past and I wasin one of those organizations
(18:35):
myself where I had to stepup and say, okay, that thing
is broken and due to my kindof, what do I call it, like
my personality and lack ofsatisfaction with seeing
something broken, that's justcausing endless frustration.
Just being like, okay, there'sno one responsible for that.
I'm gonna step in and fix thatthing and just sort it out,
(18:56):
and I continued to do thatand over time, that turned
into I realized that I wasreally good at that stuff.
And I wanted to do more of it.
And I liked doing that morethan the client delivery stuff.
So it was like I was a digitalproducer and digital director,
and over both of those kindof job titles, I was doing
more and more of this stuffthat had to do with operations
(19:17):
until I was like, okay, weneed an operations director.
And I feel like I'm doing twodifferent jobs and I wanna
make a case for pursuing that.
I think you're exactly right.
There's a challenge there thatyou don't wanna sacrifice what
your core duties are, so youwanna make sure that you're
being absolutely honest andsaying, Hey, i've got this
stuff that I need to deliverfor the client, and if I'm
doing all this additional, it'seither gonna have to be out
(19:39):
of hours or my main projectrequirements are gonna slip and
then that's gonna have a knockon effect and things like that.
But I think it's absolutelya great opportunity.
Hopefully whatever you'retaking on has a nice overlap
or a nice extension in thelogical extension of your core
duties, so it becomes a branch.
Galen, like I think aboutmy early career when I
first graduated university.
(20:01):
I felt like I was in thismultidisciplinary program that
did everything from like graphicdesign, web design, animation,
film, interaction design,all these kinds of things.
And I was like graduatedthinking like what do I do now?
I'm not super goodat any of them.
I know how to do a bitof everything, right?
And so I went and did a bit moredigital marketing training and
(20:22):
that's how I started my career.
But what I found is that at thestage I'm at in my career now,
being a jack of all trades backthen felt like a liability and
I can't do anything with this.
Whereas now I feel likethat's the superpower is wow.
Over time I'm still a jack ofall trades, but now that means
I'm an operations directorand I can do all these things.
(20:43):
I can go produce podcasts.
I can run training sessions.
I can, sort out people'sprocesses and I've got a
point of view on technologyand stuff like that.
So I think absolutely don'tshut down those opportunities.
Learn as much as you can, andover time, over the course of
your career, all this stuff justbecomes like tools in your tool
belt that make you more and moreof a unicorn, which just makes
(21:04):
you that much more valuable.
I think it's a great opportunityas long as you're able to not
exhaust yourself in the process.
Having those boundaries andmaking sure your kind of key
priorities are still beingaddressed at your client
delivery responsibilitiesand all that kind of stuff.
Galen Low (21:20):
I really like that 'cause it's like almost like
the art of stepping up, notjust being like, cool, I'll
step up and do this thing andmy other job, but, and maybe do
neither well, but being clear,with the organization you're
working at to say, listen.
I'm willing to stepup and step into this.
It interests me.
I'm gonna be good atit, but also I need help
balancing to make surethat I can do both well.
(21:40):
And I do agree with youthat yeah, I think you and
I both, I think coming up,like we wore a lot of hats.
Wearing a lot ofhats was normal.
And a lot of the conversationsI'm having, like I did a
post on LinkedIn, I'm like,is this the new normal?
And they're like, whenwas it not the new normal?
Because like we've been doingthis our entire careers.
But I think there was aperiod of time where, we're
deeply specializing and Ithink you know, for the deep
(22:00):
specialists, I applaud you.
I think it's still veryrelevant, but I think the
opportunities are gonna befewer and further between.
And like the way that AI andthe economy is pushing the
workforce, I do think like anopportunity to do more than
one job in a balanced waycan really open some doors.
And to your point, you said likeyou are like, listen, this role
needs to be a permanent role.
(22:21):
I want it.
In other words, it wasn't justthrust upon you, you had agency
in it and it actually gaveyou a path to go, do I want to
go back to being a producer?
Or do I want to go tobecome an ops director?
And it gave you thatexposure without having
to like jump ship.
Imagine just like taking on afull-time ops director role.
Where, there wasn't any sortof like bridge in between.
(22:44):
I think that'd be a lottrickier of a transition.
Harv Nagra (22:46):
Totally.
I was just looking away for amoment because this reminded
me of a book I'm listening toan audio book called Range:
Why Generalists Triumphin a Specialized World.
So I'm only on the secondchapter so I'm not very far
in, but I am quite excitedto read this book 'cause
it talks about exactlywhat we're talking about.
Having a lot of skills andexperimenting and it just
(23:08):
makes you in the long term, itmakes you even more successful.
So that's really interesting.
I wanted to point out likeGalen, if you don't mind,
like a couple of examples ofwhere I was taking on some
of those responsibilities.
One of those was as digitalproducer, like again, working
in an organization that wasn'tsuper mature, didn't have a very
good onboarding process or evenlike a tech onboarding process.
(23:29):
So I remember freelancers comingin and being sat at an iMac
that had literally like hundredsof files on the desktop.
And I would just sit therebeing like a bit embarrassed,
being like, oh my God, they'regonna be like, where the hell?
But not just freelancers,but full-timers, it's just
so terrible of an experienceto have someone else's
login name on your, what'smeant to be your computer.
(23:51):
So I started volunteeringto be like, you know what,
let me sort that out.
I'm gonna reset these Macsbefore somebody starts.
And then it was like at somepoint they all had not enough
ram, so I upgraded like thefleet of computers and sorted
out the getting fiber internet.
And then at some pointit was like, we've got
multiple entities, office inSwitzerland, France, and the
uk and we're not collaboratingenough with these colleagues.
(24:12):
So maybe a bit of show and tell.
So back in the day, set uplike an intranet for the
organization so we couldhave a central place to go
share what we're working on.
Also have a central placeto document some of this
stuff about ways of workingand stuff like that.
And other examples arelike you might have to
do a bit of marketing.
Social media marketing, whichwas my least favorite thing
to be added to my plate andsometimes even shoved towards
(24:34):
me as operations director youhave to plug in those gaps when
there's nobody else doing it.
Yeah.
And it was like, oh my God,I do not wanna do this social
media strategy for the business.
But yeah.
Anyway, there's certain thingsthat you might enjoy and certain
things that you have to do fora little bit, but hopefully
you can hand those over.
Yeah, good opportunity.
Sorry to go on that tangent.
Galen Low (24:54):
No, I think it's really good.
A, I'm gonna find a link to thatbook "Range" and I'll include
it in the show notes 'causethat sounds really interesting.
And, and not a lot of ourlisteners are probably like,
wow, Harv was like P-M-I-T-H-RFinance marketing guy.
But what's interestingthough is that in a way,
those were all projects.
They were projects you took on.
(25:14):
And that was almost theway you metered them.
And I like the fact thatyou're like, sometimes you're
gonna have to do somethingthat isn't fun that you
probably didn't want to do.
Even for something like socialmedia marketing though, are
you like, yeah, I hate this,but I'm gonna learn something.
Or is it I'm just gonnado this, but as soon as I
can get it off my plate...
Harv Nagra (25:30):
I'm rolling my eyes.
That was, yeah, coming upwith a content calendar
was not my highlight.
There was probably a point whereI did enjoy it a little bit.
I think you recognizeyour strengths, right?
And from my, my, my backgroundwith like tech and like process
and stuff like that, it wasalways the systems stuff and
the training and the tech.
(25:51):
That got me really excitedversus having to juggle
like responsibilitiesfor social media.
Galen Low (25:57):
Oh, I like the way you're looking at it
'cause you're like, I'lldo this for now, but this
is not the one I'm keeping.
This is the one I'm gonna learn.
It's gonna be fun.
And then as it gets lessfun, I'm gonna hand it off.
But it's your way of likegetting exposure to things.
Harv Nagra (26:08):
Totally.
And if there's any kind oflike leaders, business leaders
listening to this I think it'salso important to recognize
that there's a little bit ofthis that you can encourage your
team to do to grow their skills.
If you're trying to run abusiness where everyone's
juggling multiple hats inareas that is not really their
passion and their interest ifpeople are gonna leave, right?
And it's just not, what youwanna do is have a project
(26:30):
manager being part-time,like social media marketer
and someone juggling HR andoperations as a side job.
It's not sustainablein the long run.
So you want to try to makesure you've got internal
facing roles and clearroles and responsibilities
for people as well.
Galen Low (26:48):
I love that.
And actually, while we're onthe business maturity train,
because I know it's a topicthat you like to dig into.
The other side of the coin,I guess I'd say, right?
So in some cases with, in thisjob market, in this economy,
project managers are maybefinding themselves shifting
into other organizations.
And in some cases and Ilove saying this because I'm
like, I know so many peoplein my network doing this
(27:09):
right now, but in some cases,they are moving from a big
organization to somethingthat's smaller and younger and
fundamentally just like lessmature of an organization.
To your point where you'relike, you're used to really
clean onboarding and then youget there and you're like,
cool, I'm excited, but also mylogin is the last employee's
name, and you're like, Ugh.
(27:30):
We talked before about,advocating what project
manager role could do.
I'd love your take on, justlike what should someone in
that situation be advocatingfor it to make sure that they
have what they need to like dotheir job well, like how can
they spot gaps and then likeescalate operational issues
in a constructive way, right?
They're like their firstcouple months on the job and
(27:50):
they're like, everything'sbroken, everything sucks.
What is the right way to do it?
Harv Nagra (27:55):
That's a tricky situation to be in, and
I don't know if there'sa perfect answer to that.
But the first thing I'd say is,you're right, I do love talking
about operational maturityand business maturity models.
So go look that up.
I, it's something that I'vetalked about my podcast and had
webinars on and stuff like that,so I'm sure you'll find content
with me talking about it.
But these businessing modelstend to have five stages, right?
(28:16):
Galen, like on one end youare in that make stuff up as
you go stage where everyone'sjust flying by the seat of
their pants and it's not ideal.
It can be fun if it's the firstcouple years and you're like,
everyone's just about winningbusiness and stuff like that.
But you don't wantto get stuck in that.
And sometimes businessesdo, like the MD, the
CEO just doesn't havethat business acumen.
(28:37):
Or even though awareness thatthings should run better.
And they're like 10, 11years in and it's like
still running like that.
That's terrible.
On the other end of thescale, like stage five is like
super efficient, continuousimprovement in place and
you're really innovating.
But I think the most interestingthing is like stage three.
I call this the stable era.
You end up having likecentralized, documented
(28:59):
best practice, which helpsyou onboard people really
efficiently and train people anda place where people can go and
reference how to do that thing.
Not to say that it's superrigid and it's a tick box thing
that you have to do this exactthing, but it's documented.
The agency or the businesshas a point of view about
this is best practice.
Of course now go use yourintuition to adapt this
(29:21):
to your project needsor your client needs and
stuff like that, right?
At this stage, you also havereally good tools in place,
and those tools, in my pointof view, they tend to be
deeply automated, is whatyou wanna be looking for.
So at those more maturestages, level one and level
two, might be creatingquotes in the spreadsheet.
You might be creatingproject plans and Smartsheet.
(29:41):
You might be time sheeting inlike harvest, and then trying
to reconcile your budgetsand spreadsheets and goal
sheets and stuff like that.
And it's all a bit disjointed.
Again, first couple of stages ofbusiness maturity, that's fine,
but at some point as you'regrowing and your head count is
increasing and your projectsare getting more complex.
That is not sustainable becauseyou spend loads of time copying
(30:03):
data from one place to anotherand it wastes time and it's
not accurate and everything'salways slightly out of date
and you don't know how yourprojects are performing,
let alone your business.
So I think it's reallyimportant at that stage that
you have, like your businesshas deeply automated and
connected this stuff, so theinformation flows better.
You mentioned at the beginning,I worked for a company
called Scoro, and it's oneof these platforms that
house all that functionalitybaked into one place.
(30:25):
It's called the ProfessionalServices Automation Platform.
So that's also somethingthat you could do is have
something like that in place.
So I think that's really key.
But beyond this, I think,like I was alluding to
a few minutes ago, it'snot just delivery people.
Your business should haveinternal facing roles,
which is super important.
So you have an operationsdirector, you have a finance
director, you have a resourcemanager and stuff like that.
(30:47):
So there's people inplace to create controls.
So that it's not just andI've worked in places where
it's basically everyone isexternal facing and that's where
everyone is juggling side jobs.
And at some point youstart pulling out your
hair and be like, this isnot gonna work any longer.
Other things to lookout for is that you're
measuring performanceof your organization.
(31:07):
So that comes back to the toolsagain, that your tools are able
to let you see how things aregoing and what's coming up.
So you have a bit of anidea that, are you gonna
have the capacity totake on more work or not?
Or is your teamgonna be burnt out?
Are you gonna have thesales that you're expecting
to keep everyone busy?
All that kind of stuff.
So those are things to look forand I would again, encourage
(31:28):
people to go check out thisbusiness maturity stuff and
some of the stuff I've talkedabout, or reach out to me
if you wanna hear more aboutit, see if those roles are in
place, is there an ops director?
And if not, then thatmight be a challenge.
But there might be somebodythat's juggling that and there's
an internal champion already.
It might be the head of deliveryor the senior account director
or somebody that's having todo that as their side job.
(31:50):
So make friends with them.
And be like, oh, interesting.
So you're having to do this.
Is there, is thereanything I can help with?
I've seen it work likethis in my past business.
Is that something you guyshave discussed before?
And maybe start plantingthe seeds a little bit.
Also Galen I think you and Ihave the privilege of creating
resources for people inbusinesses like that, right?
(32:13):
So encourage your leaders,if they don't listen to
The Digital Project Managerpodcast or the Handbook, they
just the operations podcastto say, oh, you know what?
I listen to thispodcast, I noticed it's
not something we do.
You might wanna listento that conversation.
So that's a way to plantthe seed and get the
conversation flowing.
And it might not changeovernight, but at least you're
(32:34):
starting that ball rolling andthen you can start to see if
there's kind of things that youwant to, and you're able to,
and you're excited about kind ofplugging some gaps and getting
some experience along the way.
Galen Low (32:46):
I love that.
I wasn't even thinkingabout it in that direction
as it relates to the otherquestion, but like yeah.
Like in some cases, this isan opportunity if you came
from a larger organization,maybe there were a four or a
five on the maturity scale.
You're coming down tosomething that is, one A you
could probably see prettyquickly if the owners and
operators there are like Yeah,but that's what makes us.
(33:07):
Like we are never gonnamature 'cause we are the micro
agency that doesn't do what,a maturity five would do ever.
And you're like, okay, andmaybe that's fine, but also
you know what you're in for.
Versus like that excitement ofbeing like, you know what, I can
actually help this organizationget from one to three.
And I'm finding that exciting.
Whereas when you're at afour or a five or a larger
agency and you're like.
(33:27):
That's that person's job, right?
I don't do resourcemanagement, I don't do finance.
I don't do ops.
Somebody already has thatrole, but suddenly you can
come at it from the otherway and say, actually,
that's interesting, and Iunderstand the reasons why.
Now, it's not just thestructure that's in place,
the structure that wasbuilt for a reason, right?
To give business morepredictability and more insight.
More repeatability.
(33:48):
It's to, inspire growth.
It's to do more actually,but like more fun cool
things with more fun coolpeople in a lot of cases.
And to actually be like, okay,actually maybe there is a way
I can explore and nestle myway into something that isn't
just me, leaping into a newjob because the job market
is tough, could actually bequite a cool opportunity.
Harv Nagra (34:09):
Yeah, definitely.
And I think there's somany resources out there.
So find those communities likeDPM or the Handbook or whatever,
and take that opportunity to belistening and learning stuff so
that you can introduce thingsyourself or like I said, plant
the seeds and things like that.
It is a really good careeropportunity if you're interested
(34:30):
in in evolving your careerin a really helpful way.
Instead of complaining aboutthat thing, try and go fix it.
Galen Low (34:37):
Yeah.
I like the Scoro thing too,and the professional services
automation thing becausein some ways, it's not new.
But I think for a lotof agencies of a certain
size or organizations ofa certain size, it's new.
Do you know what I mean?
Like they hadn't reallythought about it.
And I like that notion of beinglike, cool Hey, you should
give this a listen just becausejust opening the aperture
on, the art of the possible.
(34:57):
It's yeah, like there's thisthing, I was listening to this
podcast and yeah, it mightbe worth exploring because it
might not have been a thing thatoccurred to an organization that
is trying to get to level fouror five maturity in the model,
Harv Nagra (35:09):
and on, on that specific point, like if people
listening to this are agencies,we often don't think of our
ourselves as professionalservices businesses like you
call yourself a agency orconsultancy, not professional
services business, so somethingthat's called professional
services automation.
It's what the hell is that?
I've never heard of that.
So yeah, it doesn't comenaturally, but it is just
important to know what'sout there and there's
(35:31):
kind of separate tools.
Then you can have automationbaked in and do this
kind of deep integration.
Native integrations, youcan use APIs to build
connections to things.
You can use Zapier to buildconnections between apps and
stuff like that, but thenthere's also tools that have
that full workflow in a singleplace, and that's what a PSA is.
But anyway, that was a bitof a tangent, but I just.
Galen Low (35:52):
No, I like that because I think, you're right.
I think a lot of agencies,they use tons of tools.
Like we did a survey a year orso ago about how many tools each
individual within an agency isusing, and it's it's above 20.
And people love them.
That's the way they, havereliably been able to
deliver and they don'twant it to go away.
So they don't want some big,enormous software to come
and take over all the things.
(36:13):
They wanna wait for it toglue together so that it's
cohesive, that the data'saccurate, that no one's
copying, pasting anything.
It's the dream.
Harv Nagra (36:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
Galen Low (36:22):
I wonder if we can look a bit into the future
because, I know you're bigon agency ops, operating
models and structures.
I'm just wondering whatpredictions do you have for
agencies in the coming year?
Are the big agencies gonna keepgetting bigger and bulkier?
Are the micro agenciesgonna get, I don't
know, even more micro?
Will every agency teammember be a freelancer?
(36:43):
And what can agencies doto prepare for the future
that you see unfolding?
Harv Nagra (36:47):
We're starting with a really hard
question and ending witha really hard question.
It's so hard to say Galen like,when we're recording this is
just off the back of the tariffsbeing introduced last week and
the chaos and confusion that'scausing and I think initial
instinct for anybody working inlike an agency or something like
that was, we're service-based,so we're safe, but ultimately
(37:08):
our clients are the brandsand the products that pay for
marketing and outsource projectsand all that kind of stuff.
So ultimately it willhave an impact on us.
So there's just that wholekind of chaotic thing that we
don't know what's happening.
So there's just a degree ofhaving to be flexible and
roll with whatever comes.
But I think that goes back towhat I was saying, is having
(37:30):
to operate in a really smart,nimble way where you're not
wasting resources and you'rebeing super efficient, right?
So if you're planning thingsin a way that you know that
there's not gonna be freelancerssitting there for half day
waiting for their projects.
That is not a good way to runyour business and not having
the visibility about whetheryou've got the capacity or you
don't have the capacity to takeon work and stuff like that.
(37:53):
So making sure you're inthat kind of state, and I'm
probably stating a bit of theobvious here, but I think us
relying on AI in more and moreinteresting and creative ways
is gonna be really exciting.
I find myself month on month,just, spending more and more
time even on like ChatGPTis just, it's so interesting
the kind of ideation andkind of the results you can
(38:17):
get just sitting with itfor a while and and having
that kind of conversation.
So I think in terms of headcountgrowth, I wonder if that's
gonna stabilize and stay fairlyconsistent, but we're just
gonna become more efficientand capable within the team
sizes that we have, which isquite cool 'cause then we can
do more and charge more, butkeep the same size head counts.
(38:40):
To prepare, I'd say, getyour operating model right.
Think about all those things,the people, the processes, the
tools, the data that you'rerelying on to make sure all
of that's in a good place.
If you have any influence orlike I said, plant those seeds
with your leadership team tomake sure they're doing it.
And then stayefficient and flexible.
Keep your ear out intowhat's happening and keep
experimenting and sharing thatknowledge in your monthly all
(39:02):
hands and stuff like that.
Giving people an opportunity toshare and inspire one another.
All that kind of stuff, becausewe just need to be able to pivot
really quickly and roll with it.
If you're too rigid, that'swhen trouble happens because
you're just, you're hunkeringdown on what it's like today
or what it was like lastyear and you're not ready
(39:23):
for what's gonna happen next.
Galen Low (39:25):
I totally agree.
I think, so much ofit is about agility.
It becomes a bitmore scientific now.
Where we can't necessarilyafford to not be as
efficient as we can be.
And that's gonnatake some effort.
It's gonna take somesmart decisions.
It gonna, it's gonna takesmart planning and it's gonna
be looking at the data as wego to see, where it's going.
(39:47):
I know that makes it hard forlong-term planning, that's the
boat that our clients are in.
That's the boat, the wholeworld's in right now.
It's an opportunity toinnovate, to adapt, and
to make your way through.
Harv Nagra (39:57):
Definitely.
Galen Low (39:58):
Awesome.
Harv, thank you so much forspending the time with me today.
I really enjoyedthis conversation.
Again, for folks listening,Harv and I have the first
bit of this conversation onhis podcast, the Handbook.
I'll link it in theshow notes below.
And yeah, I think overallwhat an interesting POV.
Thank you again, Harv somuch for your insights.
Looking forward tocollaborating more soon.
Harv Nagra (40:19):
Absolute pleasure, Galen.
Thanks so much for having me.
Galen Low (40:22):
Alright folks, there you have it.
As always, if you'd like tojoin the conversation with
over a thousand like-mindedproject management champions,
come join our collective!Head on over to
thedpm.com/membershipto learn more.
And if you like what youheard today, please subscribe
and stay in touch onthedigitalprojectmanager.com.
Until next time,thanks for listening.
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