For those running an in-house creative agency, how do you manage workflow? What methodology for maximum efficiency? The more details, the better.

I’ve seen in-house creative teams work best when they operate more like agile product squads than traditional “design request” departments. We use a blend of Kanban for visibility and sprint cycles for structure — it keeps projects moving while giving room for creativity. Clear intake forms, tiered priorities, and async feedback loops also make a huge difference.

The real efficiency, though, comes from alignment when the creative team understands the business goals behind every brief, revisions drop, and output quality jumps.

Earlier this year, we made the move to shift up to 75% of what was outsourced to agencies to a newly formed in-house creative team. We have this team managed by a former marketer (customer). One team member came from the agency side and its expert in creative productivity tools. Another is a dedicated project manager. She leverages Smartsheet to manage workflow. It also has extra advantages like creating a single status document that all agencies feed into (no more one-off agency updates) and it keeps our external-to-the-team reviewers/approvers on task.