Hey Reader,
A few weeks ago I shared how I'm thinking about categorizing the different types of work that comes through Brand Studio at Kit into 3 categories:
- Programmed work that follows a regular cadence, with clear processes to follow
- Templated work that comes in ad-hoc but can be completed quickly using templates
- Bespoke work that's more creative and strategic
You can read that issue here if you missed it, but I got some great feedback (and questions) on that framework when I shared it with you all and with my team, and I've since refined my thinking.
Here's the v2: a 2x2 matrix.
On one axis: planned vs ad hoc (when the work happens)
On the other: production vs bespoke (how the work happens)
This gives us four types of work:
🗓️ Planned production work – Regular cadence work that's part of our business-as-usual operations. Think: newsletter graphics, social media images from templates, workshop promos.
🎨 Planned bespoke work – The "big rock" projects we commit to each quarter like tier 1 and 2 product marketing campaigns, CRO experiments, and importantly: building new systems that will enable future production work to happen more efficiently.
⏰ Ad hoc production work – Requests where the timing hadn't been anticipated, but can run through our established templates and systems. Hiring graphics, social posts to take on a zeitgeist moment or a sales deck for a new opportunity might be examples of this.
😰 Ad hoc bespoke work – This is work that isn't planned but requires custom strategic thinking & high effort, and as a rule we'll try to avoid this work. If a project comes up in this category, it'll have to compete against our planned bespoke projects, and we'll only take it on if the impact justifies the trade-off.
Why this matters
This matrix is my next attempt to bring order to the chaos of marketing design. As our marketing team has grown, the volume of requests coming our way has increased significantly. Getting this structure right is what will allow us to protect our creative capacity for the highest-impact projects.
The ultimate ideal would be for my small-but-senior-level team to be spending no more than 25% of their project time on the production work, because I know the bespoke work is where their impact can best be amplified.
Honestly though, I don't actually know what percent of time is spent on each type of work right now. Our new Director of Marketing is helping me define what the "business as usual" planned production work should be moving forward, and my next step is adding something to our project management system that will let us track work types for a while and spot where we need better systems or templates.
Why I like this framework
I got feedback on my prior grouping of 3 buckets of work that I could simplify it down to just "templated vs bespoke". But I felt like that didn't capture the timing and planning aspects that are crucial for anticipating capacity and working calmly.
What I particularly like about the 2x2 is that it makes ad hoc bespoke work clearly an exception, not a rule or expectation. I'm hoping this will encourage people to surface big projects during our planning process rather than showing up last minute. And it gives my team a clearer framework for saying no when ad hoc bespoke work does come up.
Since feedback from my lovely readers was so useful in refining my thinking last time, I'm curious – does this structure resonate with how you think about work categorization? Or are you approaching this problem differently?
Hit reply and let me know what you think.
Talk soon,
