How we turned Laika into an agile agency and 4 tips for you to do the same

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, our spaceship, called Laika, embraced agility to improve our business operations and create a competitive edge over the other spaceships in the galaxy. In order to create high-quality services, to be able to react quickly to our external environment and clients’ needs, agility became a necessity early on. Our client base mainly consists of technology companies and start-ups—two kinds of organizations notorious for developing at a fast-pace. Therefore, as a PR and communications agency, we need to be able to react at least as fast to their requirements. Discovering why we needed to be agile was the easy part, the more difficult question was: How to make Laika agile?

How did we turn Laika into an agile agency? 

Today, there are numerous recognized agile methodologies and frameworks used by different organizations in various industries. Nevertheless, here at Laika, we did not use one specific framework or methodology to develop into an agile agency. Instead, our agility mainly stemmed from a collective paradigm and the entrepreneurial drive across our spaceship. The foundation is the ability to have an open mind, to be curious, and to be able to spot opportunities whenever they present themselves. We believe that intelligence and talent can be developed over time instead of assuming that it is set, and we collectively adopt a growth mindset over a fixed mindset. In this manner, our agility more or less grew organically through the values and concepts of the agency. Over time, we implemented different processes and programs that would help develop this. But even if there wasn’t a specific methodology in place, there were six initial points that made us agile. Here we go:

1. Company culture 

Our company culture can be seen as a work and leadership culture, in which we live and breathe shared and servant leadership. On one hand, this includes spatial changes in the workplace to promote collaboration, creativity, and flexibility. On the other hand, agility requires a leadership culture that’s based on trust, empowerment, and self-management.

To be able to create a space(ship) where people are self-managing, we believe that internal transparency is key and helps achieve this aspect. Internal transparency results in more inclusiveness, which in turn leads to more participation and therefore more interdependence and responsibility for every Space Dog. These are two key factors of working agilely. 

Other than the internal transparency, a portion of the agility at Laika comes from the common culture created as a result of our shared values and the collective paradigm we have towards the common company vision. This has resulted in the Space Dogs having a shared purpose (a North Star). Our shared vision is that we believe it’s curiosity that drives people and makes the world go round. That life is about exploring it together, and that those who stay open-minded and push for what’s next are leading the missions of tomorrow. Our shared vision in general already describes an entrepreneurial drive, but with this being part of our North Star, it results in a more motivated and proactive space crew, which in turn creates the ability to react quickly and helps with swift decision-making. 

2. Organizational structure

At Laika, we maintain a flat organizational structure, which is very clear to all our space cadets, where we minimize the hierarchy at management levels to a minimum. Each of our teams consists of leads and support, with leads being more senior in the field of work and therefore having a higher degree of responsibility. But a lead can also act as a support in another team. All teams work autonomously but communicate with each other via weekly team meetings, internal jour fixes, or other ways that they see fit. This structure leads to quick decision-making and aids in the event of a colleague's absence. In such a situation, the supporting members are able to take over much of the responsibility of the lead.

3. Work processes 

We generally work in an agile team setup, meaning that teams are put together based on individual expertise, interest in the specific topic, and of course the timely resources of the team members. Following this, we’re able to quickly assemble teams that meet the requirements of specific clients. We believe that the diversity of knowledge supports us in delivering high-value communication services to our clients. With this approach, the Laika team now includes multiple career changers. And when meeting new job applicants, we take diversifying knowledge into account. 

The focus for projects is always on cross teamwork, which is orientated towards projects and their efficient processing. For this, we use different agile processes and tools that relate to various agile methodologies. We’ve briefly mentioned our weekly team meeting before, a part of this meeting is set up with the goal to communicate important client information throughout the crew, to get an overview, and to stay focussed on client targets and needs. We accomplish this by discussing client relations with a health check system, client priorities—if support is needed, and the amount of time that has been spent on a particular client. Besides the weekly team meeting, we have daily standup meetings. In these meetings, the pack communicates what they have accomplished the day prior, what they are going to do to achieve their next goal, and if anything is blocking their progress. This meeting increases communication between team members and allows for the opportunity to identify problems that stand in the way of effectively achieving goals. 

4. Empowered teams and employee management

Our employee management relates to the structure of our teams and the common company culture. We believe that a network of empowered teams makes us more agile. Giving team members more responsibility and autonomy leads to higher commitment and creates more ingenious concepts, ideas and results. The increase in responsibility is met by an adequate compensation and incentive system. Amongst other things, this includes a Mindfulness Day (an annual digital detox day), a closed office during Christmas, end of year bonuses, individual and team training, flexible and hybrid working models, various possibilities for sabbaticals, and team events. 

We believe that the possibility for professional and personal growth is key to successful employee management. As individuals, we learn from each other's successes and failures to develop our capabilities, and we make continuous learning part of our DNA through, for example, offering clinics in communication, productivity courses, and different workshops. Additionally, giving contextual and personal feedback on created content, recording and sharing meetings to see what we can learn from them, and the more informal, but highly valuable Lunch and Learns, are an integral part of our everyday work. Furthermore, we support role mobility throughout our teams for further talent development based on individual goals.

5. Evaluation 

Regular performance evaluations at short intervals at the team level also play a great role in the agility of Laika. An example of how we have regular evaluations is through our bi-weekly retrospective meetings. These meetings give us the opportunity to discuss what went well in the past two weeks and what could have been better. We evaluate health check items and give room to thank other team members personally. This retro is designed to identify blockers and act upon them through the creation of action items. Besides eliminating blockers, the retro visualizes team and organizational progress and helps increase team cohesion. This is accompanied by a 360° feedback which is put together by the team and which each of our Space Dogs receives on a regular basis. 

6. Enabling technologies

Our services are mainly provided through online communication. To support this, we use tools that can evolve simultaneously and can be adjusted to the needs of our agency. Agile organizations need tools to leverage real-time communication and management. Therefore, software programs that can support this rapid change are essential. We predominantly use Google Workspace and other Google applications as a platform to create value because they provide an evolving workspace. Especially, Google's cloud-based storage program makes working with and accessing colleagues' work effortless. This likewise allows us to work seamlessly with freelancers and employees, and clients outside Berlin. Other than Google, we use Slack as an enabling tool to secure quick communication internally. 

Alongside real-time communication tools, the pack utilizes management tools in various ways. Onboard our spaceship, we work with different digital planning tools to increase our productivity, such as Asana, and within the agency, we also use programs that increase the efficiency of distributing our content through Cision and Publer. 

These connecting points explain why Laika is agile and how processes and tools helped develop our agility over time. But as mentioned in the introduction, the agility of the agency would be non-existent if the people at Laika did not have the collective paradigm towards our values, mission, and vision that form the agency and the entrepreneurial drive through which opportunities are quickly spotted. Agile people implement agile processes, which creates an agile organization. 

4 Tips to becoming an agile organization

Becoming agile is different for every spaceship that flies across the universe, but from observing what makes Laika agile, these tips could help your organization in becoming able to react quicker to its external environment. 

1. Encourage personal and team development

Personal and professional development needs to be deeply embedded into the spaceship’s warp core reactor and supported through a workspace where success, but more importantly, failures are seen as opportunities to learn. 

2. Create a cohesive team where trust is key

Building a cohesive team with a common culture and a high-trust environment will lead to more productivity and proactiveness. 

3. Cultivate strong and servant leadership

Team leaders need to be willing to serve a team and share power in a way that allows team members to perform tasks in a creative and self-organized manner. 

4. Enable  essential technologies  

Advanced and evolving technology is necessary to support real-time communication and the efficient management of day-to-day work. 

A wise woman once said: “You can’t stop change any more than you can stop the sun from setting.” Businesses can’t control changes in the external environment, but they can develop the ability to react fast and effectively to the changes and turn this into an operational strength. To keep the Star Wars analogy going: agility has given the Rebel Alliance the power to defeat the Galactic Empire, imagine what it can do for your organization.

This blog post was heavily influenced by Laika’s internal expertise on agility from the always energetic Kamal, and the articles on organizational agility from Mckinsey, The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and The Boston Consultancy Group.