Whether you’re practicing scrum or kanban, it’s all about pulling a team together with a variety of tools to create a high-performance environment that maximizes productivity. Backlog grooming is part of that — and it’s a meaningful way to keep product development organized and running smoothly. Where scrum meetings are concerned, it means doing more than hosting a simple sprint planning meeting to develop a product roadmap.

Successful projects require successful project planning and careful documentation. This is true in predictable environments like manufacturing, where a range of traditional project management practices dominates project planning. But what about creative environments? What does it look like to plan and document creative projects successfully?

After working with and interviewing hundreds of agency owners on my podcast Agency Life, one thing seems to ring true for all—the journey to starting an agency is often wide and varied. And while that path is different for everyone, their backstories are unanimously fascinating. Most agency owners I’ve spoken to had never run a business before starting their agency, but they had a deep passion for helping other businesses grow.

As a founder or leader at a small business, growth is incredibly exciting — it means the thing you’re building is working, gaining steam, and growing market share. But growth can be painfully complicated, too. You’ll inevitably reach a point where there’s more to do than you or your current team can get done — but is there enough work to justify hiring a new employee? In this quick guide, we’ll show you how to decide when it’s time to hire.

Knowing exactly when to hire project managers (whether your first one or another to join a growing team) is crucial but tricky. Wait too long, and chaos intensifies — cutting into productivity and profits. Yet, hiring too early can be a resource drain that could threaten profitability differently, especially for startups and small businesses. Businesses that have never had a formal project manager might have the toughest time with this decision.

“RFP.” These three letters alone can bring up a whole mix of emotions and reactions, and with good reason. If you work at an agency in particular, it's likely you’ve responded to many an RFP or “Request for Proposal,” and experienced both success and heartache with them, too (insert relationship status: It's complicated). Even if you got your first big client break with an RFP, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should always keep going back for more.

Do you manage a team that has deadlines? Are you someone who has to complete business tasks on a schedule? If you answered “yes” to either, you likely already know the pain of meeting deadlines. Somehow it hardly seems to matter how much time a task or project is given. As any deadline nears, we humans seem extremely adept at missing them or at least coming close to doing so.

If there’s one secret to enhancing your team’s productivity and maximizing efficiency, it’s team-building activities. Imagine working in a company where team members barely collaborate, water cooler conversations are a foreign concept, and everyone’s working in isolated silos. You wouldn’t like it, and neither would your business KPIs. In fact, statistics show that workplace isolation can lead to a 21% drop in performance and productivity.

Little known fact: the best run agencies use checklists for everything. As the CEO and co-founder of Teamwork, I talk to hundreds of our agency customers every single month. I also used to run an agency myself, so I can tell you with certainty that when it comes to running a successful business, checklist templates are not only a time-saver, but they're also a game-changer.

What’s one business concept that's widely recognized as important, often blamed when projects go off the rails, and rarely defined clearly? If you guessed project visibility, you’ve got a great mind for projects – or maybe you just read the giant title up above. Either way, kudos to you! Many organizations and project leaders seem to recognize the importance of project visibility, but too often it’s defined by its absence.