Transforming
Creative Operations
Creative Operations
How a three-phase transformation increased team utilization from 53% to 72%, delivering a sustained 19-percentage-point improvement.
The Challenge
A multidisciplinary creative team operating across the United States and Costa Rica had struggled with low utilization for several years. The team supported traditional print design, UI/UX, web design, photography, illustration, and executive-level presentation design.
Despite this broad range of capabilities, average utilization remained at approximately 53%, well below the organization's minimum healthy threshold of 60%. Compounding the problem, much of the team's existing workload consisted of internal projects rather than client-billable work.
The challenge was not simply finding more work. It was understanding why an established team with diverse capabilities was consistently unable to operate at its expected capacity.
Building the Leadership Structure
Before developing solutions, I established a leadership structure designed to connect strategic decision-making with day-to-day operational execution.
I organized stakeholders into two complementary groups:
Core Strategic Team
Manager-level representatives from Creative Operations, Creative Direction, Workflow Planning, and Shift Management, joined by the Creative Operations and Creative Direction leaders of the Tactical Team.
This group was responsible for strategic alignment, prioritization, and removing organizational barriers.
TACTICAL TEAM
Team leaders, creative leaders, workflow planners, and shift leaders responsible for daily operations, staffing, assignments, and execution.
This structure created a direct connection between the people making strategic decisions and those responsible for implementing them.
Diagnosing the Root Causes
With the leadership structure established, I facilitated a root-cause workshop involving both teams.
Rather than assuming low utilization resulted from insufficient demand, we examined how work entered the organization, how assignments were made, and whether the team possessed the capabilities necessary to execute available projects.
Three primary issues emerged:
Assignment resistance: Some designers declined projects based on personal preferences rather than operational requirements.
Capability gaps: Some designers lacked the skills necessary to complete available assignments, limiting workflow planners' scheduling options.
Limited organizational visibility: Internal stakeholders and account managers did not fully understand the team's capabilities, reducing opportunities to direct appropriate work to the team.
These findings informed a three-phase transformation strategy that balanced immediate stabilization with long-term organizational improvement.
Phase 1: Rapid Response
Timeline: First month
The immediate priority was to restore healthy utilization while longer-term solutions were developed.
Elsewhere in the organization, iterative presentation design was experiencing a backlog of approximately three weeks, even for relatively straightforward assignments.
Working with the Tactical Team, we identified ten designers who combined low utilization with comparatively strong presentation-design skills.
We temporarily reassigned these colleagues to a dedicated Presentation Design squad, responsible for processing assignments from the overflow queue.
Simultaneously, we partnered with Account Coordination to improve awareness of the team's broader capabilities. We developed a one-page capability overview and distributed it to account managers throughout the region, helping them identify opportunities to direct appropriate projects to the team.
Phase 1 Results
Team utilization reached healthy levels within the first week.
The rapid-response strategy demonstrated that the team possessed productive capacity that could be redirected toward existing organizational demand.
However, relying on another department's backlog was not a sustainable operating model.
The immediate intervention stabilized performance and created the opportunity to address the underlying problems.
Phase 2: Capability Development and Accountability
Timeline: Months 2–3
With utilization stabilized, the second phase focused on eliminating the structural barriers identified during the root-cause workshop.
Closing capability gaps
Designers who lacked the skills required for available work were temporarily assigned to a non-productive development grid.
During this period, they were excluded from the team's productive utilization calculations and received individualized feedback identifying the capabilities they needed to strengthen.
Working with the training team and Creative Direction leadership, we established a two-to-three-month development period during which colleagues could close their skills gaps before returning to the regular production schedule.
This provided a structured pathway for professional development while ensuring workflow planners could rely on the capabilities of designers assigned to active production.
Establishing scheduling accountability
We also addressed the practice of designers declining assignments based on personal preference.
Workflow planners were given clear authority to schedule appropriate projects during designers' regular shifts. Requests to override an assignment required my approval.
When concerns arose, I met directly with the designers involved.
If the concern reflected a legitimate capability gap, the colleague could enter the development program to acquire the necessary skills.
If the concern was simply a preference not to perform the assigned work, I provided direct feedback about the impact on the team's performance, the responsibilities of the role, and the potential implications for individual performance evaluations.
This established clearer expectations while distinguishing legitimate development needs from avoidable assignment resistance.
Expanding sources of demand
At the same time, we began building relationships with other service lines that had higher concentrations of client-billable work.
We positioned the team as a dependable backup resource, creating opportunities to absorb additional demand while increasing its contribution to client-facing work.
As these changes progressed, we gradually transitioned away from the temporary Presentation Design squad.
Phase 2 Results
Utilization remained stable as the organization transitioned away from its initial rapid-response measures.
The development assignments, improved scheduling practices, and expanding service-line relationships allowed the team to maintain performance while the longer-term operating model took shape.
Phase 3: Sustainable Operations
The final phase focused on institutionalizing the improvements and ensuring performance would remain healthy without temporary interventions.
Designers completing their development programs returned to regular production with stronger capabilities and clearer expectations.
Relationships with other service lines became recurring operational partnerships, providing additional sources of work and improving the team's ability to respond to changes in demand.
We also formalized our collaboration with Account Coordination, reinforcing awareness of the team's capabilities and creating more consistent opportunities to connect available capacity with appropriate assignments.
Together, these changes established a more flexible and accountable operating model supported by stronger skills, improved workforce planning, and greater organizational visibility.
The Results
The team moved from operating consistently below established standards to maintaining utilization comfortably within the healthy range.
Just as importantly, the improvement was supported by structural changes rather than continued dependence on temporary overflow assignments.
The organization emerged with stronger scheduling accountability, broader production capabilities, improved collaboration across service lines, and greater visibility into the value the team could provide.
Leadership Insights
This transformation reinforced several principles that continue to shape my approach to operational leadership.
Stabilization and transformation serve different purposes. Immediate interventions can restore performance and create breathing room, but lasting improvement requires addressing the conditions that produced the problem.
Root causes require differentiated solutions. Assignment resistance, capability gaps, and limited organizational visibility were contributing to the same performance metric, but each required a different response.
Accountability and development must work together. Establishing clear performance expectations is most effective when colleagues also have meaningful opportunities to acquire the skills necessary to meet them.
Sustainable performance requires an operating model, not a temporary workaround. The ultimate success was not achieving healthy utilization in the first week. It was maintaining an average of 72% after the temporary interventions had been replaced by durable organizational improvements.
The objective wasn't simply to increase utilization. It was to build an organization capable of sustaining it.