Robert Lindström, the art & design director of digital creative agency, North Kingdom of Sweden recently wrote, “Some thoughts about – The Quality Issue”. Although I agree with the principles of the article, the reality of the matter is slightly different when maintaining a healthy balance between cost, scope and timeline (the golden triangle) – and how that leads to exceptional quality.

At LEVEL, our agency’s first priority is to champion our quality standards above all, and, like Robert’s experience, we’ve had heated battles to uphold this value. Having said that, I believe there are 3 primary issues that impact quality:

1. Cost.
   Where is the overhead coming from (during the project lifecycle and post launch)?
2. Scope.
   Why was the engagement not adjusted to manage quality and client expectations during the project?
3. Client expectations.
   What does the client want?

Client expectations are possibly the most challenging when it comes to the quality issue. At times, even Fortune 500 companies have different internal perceptions of quality and brand guidelines. Occasionally, we have to fight tooth and nail to lead the client towards the right resolution regarding quality, adoption curves and perception or to simply maintain their own brand’s standards.

It’s too easy to say that well-known agencies with big brands produce terrible results and blame the people who are concerned about money. Understanding that there will always be friction between services (especially Creative) and operational P&L, many other factors contribute to the degradation of quality.

We have been fortunate to find the right balance – where innovation and quality have a strong voice in our agency, but Robert asserts a myopic view of how an organization is run from a financial perspective while maintaining standards.

A quality rating of 99% is not enough for me – our agency and our clients deserve perfection. Accounting for agency growing pains and how that affects results, retention and standardization, impeccable quality is the derivative of 5 primary factors:

• Accurate project scoping and realistic timelines: Set the team up for success.
• Innovation: House this within the parameters of scope and timeline and/or drive by utilizing an R&D/Labs function.
• Disrupting the predictable: Change paradigms by inventing simple solutions to complex problems.
• Passionately defending one’s ideas: Support the reasoning behind the Creative, similarly to Robert’s article.
• And, finally, great quality comes from the combination of intuition, insights and passion. Build this into your culture.

Like Robert said, “If you concentrate on quality it will sooner or later pay back, when a well-executed project will give your company great PR which will give you more contracts in the future.” Now, let’s just combine that with the right construct for success and passion for the art to drive this level of autonomous thinking.