This is the second part of our series on The Ad Ops Mid-Year Tune Up, read Part 1 and subscribe to Run of Network’s RSS feed so you don’t miss the next parts!
In the first article, it was all about housekeeping – doing the work to make your day to day life easier. An important topic, no doubt, but it’s just as critical to devote some time to the strategic goals of the organization, as well as the growth and development of your team. During this time, you get to put the day to day work of getting campaigns live aside for a moment and contemplate what you’re really trying to accomplish in the organization as well as your responsibility to the careers of your team.
Get Serious About Goals
As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do expect to get there? An Ad Ops team operating without clearly defined goals is destined for mediocrity, and to remain a ‘doing’ organization rather than a ‘thinking’ organization. If managers expect themselves and their team to earn greater responsibility and influence within the company, planning for that success is critical. If you didn’t set goals at beginning of the year then, there’s no time like the present. Don’t store goals your head, but write them down, and set timeframes. Goals won’t feel real until you put some commitment behind them. Many times, HR will compel employees to set goals for the year, but how often are these set in the context of company and department goals. Are you forcing team members to dream up what they think their priorities should be, or are you leading them toward strategic imperatives, and asking them to layout specific ideas on how they can push toward those endpoints? As a manager, you should have a clear idea of what your department needs to accomplish this year, you should be actively communicating that strategy within the team, and you should be breaking that strategy into pieces and delegating responsibility over deliverables that move you toward those overall goals. When team members understand what you want them working toward, they can plan their own goals around that. Don’t make the mistake of assuming employees know and understand what you want, but provide a forum to lay it out for them, an answer their questions and concerns.
Once you have your goals laid out, or hopefully having already set them much earlier, review how far you’ve come in the first six months. Where are you on a path to success, and where do you need to adjust? Ask your team members to do the same with their own personal goals, and if necessary, update everyone on where you need to re-prioritize efforts. This may sound like obvious advice, but the reality is that most Ad Ops teams don’t have a formal process to set, let alone monitor and adjust strategic goals. It’s up to managers to put these processes in place to keep their organization focused on the core business needs, and not let the unrelenting pressure of daily, short-term tasks drown out what matters for those playing the long game.
Position Your Team for Greatness
One of the most challenging elements to manage for any Ad Ops team is turnover – there’s so much demand for good people that they can be hard to keep, particularly when so much of the day to day work is stressful and often times repetitive. Realize though that most people readily admit that money isn’t the most important reward they seek in job – rather, most people want to have an interesting job, opportunities to learn and grow, and to be respected. The mid-year point then is a crucial time to check in with each member of your team and take their temperature on how they feel about their place in the organization. Are they interested and excited with their job? If so, try to find out what’s motivating them – is it the products they support, the people they work with, what is it that’s keeping them happy and how can you give them more of that kind of work to help drive their career forward? If they seem bored, ask them what they’d like to change about their role – could you put them in charge of a new project, have them take on some of the cross-departmental meetings to get away from staring at the ad server interface for a little while? You won’t always be able to make everyone happy, but simply showing an interest and willingness to implement changes that effect their lives is more than many managers will make time to do.
Generally, make sure that your team knows what the strategic vision for the department is, what the larger business goals are, and how their jobs fit into and contribute toward that story.
Now is also the time to think about the size of your team – do you have enough people to support the work you’re tasked to accomplish? If you haven’t already, determine how to measure and quantify the workload per team member and the organization as a whole. Are you supporting more projects, flighting more campaigns, handling more complex tasks? You have to have a way to show that the workload is growing over time if you want more resources, but now is the time to design a process and get management to buy into a yardstick of some sort. Don’t just limit communicating these stats to management, but use them to celebrate your team’s efforts at regular intervals. They’ll appreciate knowing how their efforts are measured and appreciated within the larger organization, and might be surprised how much they contribute when you total it all up.