How we assess

Experience, backed by proven frameworks.

Thirty years inside agencies tell us where to look. Five established operations frameworks make what we find measurable, and make the recommendations easy to act on.

1. 1A conversation with leadership about how work moves from prospect to profit
2. 2A quick look at the numbers you already track
3. 3A short written summary of the biggest opportunities we see
4. Get a free operations evaluation

01

Services maturity benchmark

How mature is each part of the firm?

We score your firm across five areas on a five-level scale, informed by established professional services maturity research, so you can see where you are strong and where you are exposed.

What we look at

• How decisions are made and communicated
• How you win, grow and keep clients
• How you hire, develop and deploy people
• How work is scoped, delivered and measured
• How revenue, margin, utilization and billing are managed

What it tells you

Where you are strongest, where you are most exposed, and which improvements will move you up a level.

02

Value stream mapping

Where does work wait?

Borrowed from the Lean playbook, we trace one typical job from brief to invoice and record every step, handoff and delay along the way.

What we look at

• Each step, and who touches it
• Time spent working compared with time spent waiting
• Rework loops and approval cycles

What it tells you

How much of your turnaround time is really waiting, and exactly where it happens.

03

Theory of Constraints

What is the one real bottleneck?

Every workflow has one constraint that sets its pace. We find it, make sure it is never idle or wasted, and line the rest of the flow up behind it before adding capacity.

What we look at

• Where queues build up
• Who everyone ends up waiting on
• Work the constraint does that someone else could do

What it tells you

The single change most likely to speed up everything else, often without hiring.

04

Flow and WIP limits

Is too much work in motion?

Kanban principles show how many jobs each team carries at once. Too much work in progress means constant context switching and slower delivery for everyone.

What we look at

• Active jobs per person and per team
• How often priorities change mid-stream
• Turnaround time trends

What it tells you

The right amount of work in motion for faster, more predictable delivery and calmer trafficking.

05

RACI and handoffs

Who owns each step?

We map who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed at every handoff between account, creative, production and finance.

What we look at

• Steps with no clear owner
• Steps with too many owners
• Approvals that stall the work

What it tells you

A clear owner for every step, and fewer stalls between departments.

The maturity scale

From heroic to optimizing.

We place each part of your firm on a five-level scale, informed by established professional services maturity research. Most firms sit at different levels in different areas, and that's where the opportunity is.

1. 1

   Heroic

   Success depends on individual effort and late nights.

2. 2

   Repeatable

   Some teams have processes that work, but not firm-wide.

3. 3

   Standardized

   Common processes across the firm, with a few holdouts.

4. 4

   Measured

   Decisions run on reliable metrics and clear controls.

5. 5

   Optimizing

   Continuous improvement is simply how the firm works.

What you receive

A scorecard, a map and a plan.

• Operations scorecard. Where you stand on each of the six pillars, scored against the maturity scale.
• Bottleneck map. How work actually flows, where it waits, and who it waits on.
• Prioritized roadmap. The changes worth making, in order of impact, with a measure for each.

Find out where your firm stands.

Two easy ways to start. Neither comes with a pitch deck.

Or reach us directly: mark@pensumllc.com · 412.659.5859