agency-workflow

Agency workflow — the divisional process

A real creative shop does not have one person do everything. It has roles, sequence, and handoffs. Skip a role and the work suffers in a way only that role's reviewers would have caught.

The eight phases

Every brand project — campaign, website, identity, launch — goes through these. If you're tempted to skip one, stop and ask whether the phase isn't needed (rare) or whether you're rushing (common).

1. RESEARCH     audience-researcher
2. STRATEGY     brand-strategist
3. BRIEF        whoever owns the work + brand-strategist
4. CONCEPT      art-director + copywriter (parallel)
5. CRAFT        ui-designer / ui-engineer / production specialists
6. REVIEW       creative-director + brand-auditor
7. LAUNCH       performance-marketer
8. LEARN        audience-researcher (post-launch)

Linear in theory, iterative in practice. Phase 6 can send you back to 4. Phase 8 should change phase 1 for the next project.

Which agents do what

Phase	Lead agent	Output
Research	audience-researcher	Insight memo (3 things we now know we didn't before)
Strategy	brand-strategist	Positioning + voice + manifesto
Brief	(any) using creative-brief skill	8-line brief
Concept	art-director + copywriter	2-3 routes, each defensible
Craft	ui-designer + ui-engineer	Production artifacts
Review	creative-director + brand-auditor	Decisions, killed routes
Launch	performance-marketer	Channel mix, attribution plan
Learn	audience-researcher	Performance read

Which connector skills support which phase

The discipline skills are always loaded. The connector skills (under .claude/skills/{web-research,site-audit,competitive-scan,figma-connector,mcp-connectors}) come into play at specific phases — the agent leading the phase reaches for them when the tool is what unblocks the work.

Phase	Connector skills the lead agent reaches for

Instructions

| 1 Research | web-research, competitive-scan | | 5 Craft | figma-connector | | 6 Review | site-audit | | 7 Launch | web-research (verify external signals), site-audit (pre-launch sweep) | | 8 Learn | web-research, competitive-scan |

mcp-connectors is the catalogue — agents consult it to pick the right MCP server for a task rather than reinvent the integration.

Common workflow mistakes

• Skipping research. "We know our audience" — usually no, you know one customer who shouts loudest.
• Skipping strategy. "We just need ads" — you'll get ads that don't add up to anything.
• Skipping the brief. "It's a small thing" — small things make brands too. Brief everything.
• Concept and craft at the same time. Concept first, craft after. Polishing a weak concept is wasted craft.
• One review at the end. Review at concept (kills bad ideas cheaply) AND at craft (catches execution drift).
• No post-launch learn. The brand keeps shipping work without knowing what worked.
• Launch planning after craft is locked. Channel formats — paid-social specs, OG image dimensions, in-store sign sizes — constrain creative. Planning the launch after the work is built means redesigning.

How to invoke this team

When you have a complex brand task, route through the phases. Use the Agent tool with the right subagent_type at each step:

Phase 1 (research):  Agent({ subagent_type: "audience-researcher", ... })
Phase 2 (strategy):  Agent({ subagent_type: "brand-strategist", ... })
Phase 4 (concept):   Agent({ subagent_type: "art-director", ... })
                  +  Agent({ subagent_type: "copywriter", ... })    (in parallel)
Phase 5 (craft):     Agent({ subagent_type: "ui-designer", ... })
                  →  Agent({ subagent_type: "ui-engineer", ... })   (sequential)
Phase 6 (review):    Agent({ subagent_type: "creative-director", ... })
                  +  Agent({ subagent_type: "brand-auditor", ... }) (independent reviews)
Phase 7 (launch):    Agent({ subagent_type: "performance-marketer", ... })

The art-director and copywriter agents should run in PARALLEL on the same brief — they produce complementary work and shouldn't bias each other. Creative-director and brand-auditor should ALSO run in parallel for review so you get two independent reads.

Sequencing rules

• Always run research before strategy. If you can't, document that strategy was built on assumptions.
• Always run strategy before concept. If you can't, document the brand positioning as "TBD".
• Always run two or more concept routes per brief. A single route is not a review.
• Always run two independent reviews. Single-reviewer creative review is rubber-stamping.
• Always run launch planning before craft is finalised. Format constraints change creative.

When the project is small

For a single tweet, a single page section, a single email — you don't need eight phases. But you still need:

• A one-sentence brief (audience + thing to say)
• One review by someone who isn't the maker
• A reason to believe the recipient will care

Skipping these on "small" work is how brands die — by 10,000 small uncoordinated outputs.

When a project is mid-flight

You don't get to restart at phase 1. But you can:

• Audit which phases were skipped (use brand-auditor)
• Catch up on the most expensive ones (usually strategy)
• Use what's already produced as evidence rather than discarding it