Scaling a studio to meet demands across 20+ deliverable categories.
The legacy SLA used blanket 5, 10, and 15-day turnarounds regardless of deliverable complexity. Stakeholders could not plan launches against it, and the creative team could not defend workload when priorities collided. A new matrix put both sides on the same document.
The situation
BNY Mellon’s in-house creative team was operating on a legacy SLA with blanket 5-, 10-, and 15-day turnarounds regardless of what was being asked for. Stakeholders could not plan launches against that, because the team wasn’t able to defend their workload when priorities collided. And a significant portion of the catalog was quietly marked “custom,” which made working towards pre-established deadlines difficult.
What I built
I devised a fully rebuilt SLA matrix covering over 20 deliverable categories, standardizing briefing requirements, deliverable specs and delivery processes. Furthermore, all incoming requests were triaged across two dimensions: new build versus update, standard versus urgent timing. Inside the creative team, each combination of deliverable type and matrix placement was mapped to a resource management logic that chose the right team member for the task automatically. Stakeholders could see a transparent, formula-based calculation of the expected delivery date for their request based on their selection of deliverable and placement on the matrix.1
The outcome
Most deliverable categories got faster. Several “15+ custom” categories got concrete defaults for the first time and were added to the catalog. Stakeholders could now plan ahead independently. Fewer tickets had to be negotiated, and on-time delivery greatly improved.
- Examples of deliverable categories: document tiers by page count, simple graphics, infographics, resize and retouch, digital signage, brand reviews, event branding, office branding, PowerPoint tiers, video edits by length, animation, copywriting tiers.