Agency Project Management Starter Kit: The Best Practices for Small Teams

I've seen a lot of agency project management advice over the years.

Most of it is terrible.

It's either so lightweight that it's useless ("just communicate better!") or so heavy that it requires three project managers, five tools, and weekly (or the dreaded daily) status meetings that accomplish nothing.

The truth is, project management for small agencies isn't about implementing some elaborate framework you learned at a big company. The tool seems like the thing, but it isn’t.

It's about finding the level of process that's "just enough."

Just enough to keep projects clear to all parties.

Just enough to deliver exceptional work on time.

Just enough that you're not drowning in administrative overhead.

After two decades running projects—from my early days at Metalab working with Apple and Google, to consulting with 50+ small agencies—I've learned that the best project management systems are usually the simplest ones. The ones that give people what they need, when they need it, and allow them to get back to work.

So let me show you what actually works.

The Problem with Most Agency Project Management

As I said above, most agency project management is terrible. But I owe you a more thorough breakdown than that.

Almost always, I see two scenarios play out… with Scenario A usually causing Scenario B.

Scenario A: Too Little Process

Projects start with a vague agreement. Scope is unclear. Timeline is "whenever it's done." Communication happens randomly via Slack, email, and the occasional Zoom call. Nobody's quite sure what they're supposed to be working on. Project management is MIA.

The project drags on. The client gets frustrated. Your team is confused. You're working nights and weekends trying to hold it all together.

Typically, the team experiences this, and then dramatically overcorrects with…

Scenario B: Too Much Process

You read all the project management books. You implement Agile sprints even though you're a three-person team. You have daily standups, retrospectives, detailed time tracking, Gantt charts, and a project management tool that costs $50/month.

Your team spends more time updating the system than doing actual work. The team’s goals and the client’s goals fall out of sync. Even the client thinks you're over-engineering everything. Projects feel bureaucratic instead of creative.

If only there were a middle ground…

Well, there is. I recommend just enough process.

A clear enough setup that everyone knows what's happening. Simple enough that it doesn't slow you down. Structured enough that projects don't fall apart.

When I talk to agency owners about this, I always say the same thing: Your process should feel like it's barely there until you need it. An invisible set of rails that keeps things steaming forward.

First Off: Start with a Rock-Solid Client Onboarding

Most project disasters don't happen during the project. They happen before it even starts—during onboarding.

Client onboarding is far from a formality. It's where you set expectations, establish boundaries, and lay the groundwork for everything that follows. If you get this stage right, you can save yourself a lot of headaches… and maybe more importantly, start building some trust with your client.

You can bank this trust for later on when you may need to have difficult conversations about scheduling, budgets, or process.

Here's what I recommend including in every client onboarding:

1. The Onboarding Email (Send This Immediately)

Don't wait. As soon as the contract is signed, send an onboarding email that covers:

Your process:

• How you deliver work
• How the client should provide feedback
• Your typical workflow and timeline

Communication guidelines:

• Response time expectations (e.g., "24-hour response window during business hours")
• Preferred communication channels (Slack for quick questions, email for decisions)
• Meeting cadence (weekly check-ins, or whatever makes sense)
• Your working hours

Feedback framework:

• How you want feedback delivered (consolidated in one doc vs. scattered comments, right in Figma, and so on)
• Number of revision rounds included (crucial)
• What happens if scope changes (they pay more)

A clear breakdown of what you need from them:

• Access to systems, files, brand assets
• Introductions to key stakeholders on their end (who makes decisions?)
• Timeline for their approvals
• Availability for check-ins

The goal? Make it crystal clear how you work together, and show them that you are in the driver’s seat.

I've seen so many projects implode because the client expected 24/7 availability, or didn't realize they had limited revision rounds, or thought feedback could come from six different people at random times. This is your moment to clarify the rules of the game before the game starts.

Address this stuff upfront. Put it in writing. Reference it later when needed.

And remember — you absolutely don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time you need to do this. Maybe one or two details will change, but for the most part, this can be a template.

And the final ask as you wrap up this email is to ask for a brief 30-60 minutes before the true kickoff to make sure everyone is aligned on how this will go.

2. The Walkthrough Call

Schedule a 30-60 minute walkthrough call (video preferred).

This isn't a sales call. You've already sold the project. This is about alignment. This also isn’t the project kickoff—there are no workshops here.

Your onboarding email breaks down how the work will happen. Now, you’ll walk through the project itself.

Here, you’ll cover:

• The scope that the client has agreed to (you can literally walk through the signed contract)
• Timeline and key milestones (the major moments)
• Who's involved from both sides
• Any constraints or concerns

This walkthrough is all about ensuring there are no unanswered questions before the real work begins.

It might seem unnecessary, and it might seem like a waste of the client’s precious time… it’s an important moment.

Even between the contract being signed and the project kicking off, there’s no telling what may have changed in the client’s head about what you’ll be doing together. Any opportunity you can take to reinforce the shape and nature of the project will be worth it.

When there are thumbs up all around, you start.

3. The Kickoff

Here we go. Ask them for a good dedicated chunk of time, but only as much as you need.

Personally, I used to dread half-day or full-day kickoffs. My personal rule of thumb is that a kickoff shouldn’t be so long that it absolutely requires a bathroom break. That works out to around 2-3 hours.

I strongly recommend having every member of your project team there (unless it’s like… a huge amount of people), and encouraging them all to participate. One person on your team should be focused on keeping you on schedule.

Every single one of these you do will look different, but the beginning and end should look the same.

The beginning:

Introductions, agenda. Make sure to sneak an icebreaker or two in there. My all time favourite is Show & Tell — ask everyone to grab an item from around them, and tell a story about it. You want people feeling loose, creative, and ready to have fun. Doesn’t hurt if you get people opening up, or learn something interesting about them.

Your agenda should include strict and enforced time limits for each part of the kickoff. You might not have another moment where you have everyone’s attention like this, so be sure that you get what you need.

The main event:

2-3 well run workshops. As I said, these will vary quite a bit depending on the type of work you do, and what you’re doing with the client.

You may need to do some more elemental workshops (competitive analyses, etc), or they may be more in depth. It all comes down to how mature they are as a company, and how many inputs they are bringing to the table.

The conclusion:

What happens next? What are the next 4-5 major milestones and their accompanying dates?

Ideally, this kickoff was spent focused completely on the project, and not on the minutiae of project management. The key is to leave this kickoff at peak energy and excitement.

The Art of Just Enough Process

Once the project starts, you need a system to track progress without drowning in admin work.

Here's what I recommend for small agencies:

Your Project Tracker (Keep It Simple)

I’m not going to be prescriptive about exactly which tool you should use, or give you a hyperspecific template and say “use this”.

What I will tell you is that you just need to check these boxes when making a project tracker. Check each of these, and you’ll have achieved Just Enough.

• What's been done
• What's in progress
• What's coming next
• Who's responsible for what

This might seem obvious, but so many project management implementations become so convoluted and so detailed and messy that they quickly fail to check those 4 simple boxes.

Isn’t that crazy?

To me, project management is only successful when it passes a simple litmus test: someone at your company with no involvement in the project should be able to see the project’s dashboard, and understand exactly where it’s at in 2 minutes.

The moment deciphering a project management setup becomes privileged information to those who have set it up and maintained it, you have failed. Keep that in mind.

Now, I’m not going to be prescriptive about which tool to use to achieve this, but I will recommend some after a quick disclaimer.

This may be an unsatisfying thing to say, but the tool is not the most important part of Just Enough. It’s how you deploy the tool (keeping things simple and organized), and how the tool is used day-to-day (to quickly understand status and move on).

The phrase I want you to keep in mind is at a glance. Your project management tracker should give people the information they need, as well as the status, at a glance. Remember the 2 minute rule.

Some tools that work:

• Notion (flexible, clean—and lots of great templates)
• Asana (simple task management)
• Trello (visual, easy)
• Smartsheet (old school, but good for fast overviews)
• Google Sheets (seriously—sometimes this is all you need)

What NOT to do:

• Use five different tools
• Over-categorize everything
• Track time to the minute
• Create elaborate reporting dashboards

If I absolutely had to suggest the best way to structure information, it would be to use project phases to easily manage status, and then go into deeper detail within each phase as needed. But your client should only ever see things at an eminently understandable higher level.

If your project tracker takes more than 5 minutes to update daily, it's too complicated. Anyone should be able to jump in and understand where the project is at.

Should the client see our system?

This is a hard no with a massive asterisk.

The client should not be privy to your internal conversations, debating how the work gets done and arguing over potential solves. That’s for you and your team.

However, to me, the most important element of project management is clarity. And an amazing way you can achieve clarity is to share a version of your system with clients. Something that they can refer to without needing to bother me and ask for a status update.

It might feel like annoying extra work to keep two calendars synchronized, but it might feel even more annoying to have a client sweating bullets and needing you to step in to remind them that everything is, in fact, perfectly on track.

This is where tools like Notion and Smartsheet can be incredibly useful, because the client can access a simplified view of your overall project plan.

And again, if it’s a simple tracker, it should only take two minutes to update anyway. If you find a solution outside of your track that works as a client-facing project plan, it should only really take a small slice of your day to keep current. Build it into your process.

The Ideal Meeting Cadence

With a simple tracker as your outboard brain, you should only need two meetings a week to keep the project moving along.

I like to go weekly. Some people prefer more frequent, some less. My instincts are that more than once a week is overwhelming, and less than once a week leaves room for the client to question where things are at. One locked-in time for both internal and client-facing check-ins feel right.

1. Weekly Internal Check-Ins (30 Minutes Maximum)

Honestly, there are times when I really don’t even believe that a scheduled check-in time is necessary, but it doesn’t hurt to have it on the calendar.

I’ve given these a 30 minute maximum, but truthfully, they can be 5 minutes if that’s all you need.

These should be run by whoever has been assigned as the project lead (could be a project manager, could not be).

• Check-in on the current status
• Review what the client expects this week
• If it’s on track, everyone is good to go

Make these a couple days before your weekly client check-in, just in case things are not on track. Then you have some time to re-route.

2. Weekly Client Check-Ins (60 Minutes Maximum)

I'm a big believer in brief, regular communication over long, infrequent updates.

Every week:

• Quick sync with the client (60 min max)
• Review what got done
• Preview what's next
• Surface any issues early

Format:

1. Wins from last week (2 min)
2. What we're working on this week (5 min)
3. Preview of next week (5 min)
4. Questions/blockers (10 min)
5. Client questions (8 min)

If you are presenting work and feedback is required, be incredibly clear about when that feedback is due… and how the timeline will be impacted if that feedback is not received on time.

Pro tip: Send a brief written summary after each call. Just bullet points. Keeps everyone aligned and creates a paper trail.

Meeting Notes (Document Everything)

This is unglamorous but critical: Keep a running log of all meeting notes. I used to prefer doing this all in shorthand, but I’ve become a modern man. For me, Notion’s AI notes are undefeated.

Regardless of how they’re captured, you’ll want to be sure you’ve got:

• Date
• Who attended
• Key decisions made
• Action items (who's doing what by when)
• Client feedback

Why this matters:

Six weeks into a project, the client says: "I never agreed to that."

You pull up the notes from Week 2, meeting on Tuesday, 2:14pm: "Client approved approach B. Direct quote: 'Yes, let's move forward with this.'"

Conversation over. This will save your ass.

When Projects Go Sideways (And How to Recover)

Even with great process, projects sometimes hit rough patches.

Common scenarios:

The client goes dark. They stop responding. Approvals stall. The project grinds to a halt.

What to do:

• Email with a clear question and specific deadline
• If no response, escalate: "I need to hear from you by Friday or we'll need to pause the project until we can reconnect."
• Document everything

Scope creep. "Just one more thing..." turns into ten more things.

What to do:

• Point back to the original agreement
• Offer to scope the additional work separately
• Don't just absorb it (you'll resent the client and burn out your team)

The work isn't landing. The client hates everything you're presenting.

What to do:

• Step back. Get on a call. Ask open-ended questions.
• "Help me understand what's not working here."
• Often it's a misalignment on goals, not quality of work
• Re-establish shared vision, then iterate

Remember: Most project problems are communication problems in disguise.

Poor Project Management Will Almost Always Mean Poor Work

Here's what I've learned after 20 years of running projects:

Exceptional project management isn't about perfect systems.

It's about:

• Clear communication
• Mutual respect
• Appropriate boundaries
• Realistic expectations
• Human connection

You can have the fanciest project management setup in the world, but if you don't genuinely care about delivering great work and making the client's life easier, it won't matter.

Conversely, you can have the simplest possible process—a spreadsheet and weekly check-ins—and if you're communicative, proactive, and reliable, you'll run circles around agencies with ten times your infrastructure.

The simplest advice I can give is that the project should feel very clear to you.

If it does, and the client feels taken care of, you're doing it right.

You would be amazed how many agencies get lost in their own projects. It happens at agencies of all sizes, all the time.

And it sucks for everyone involved. Mainly, because this overindexing on just figuring out what the hell is going on inevitably takes the focus off the work itself.

At the end of the day, nobody remembers your flawless Gantt chart or your perfectly organized Notion database. They remember whether you delivered on time, whether you made their life easier, and whether the work was excellent.

They remembered whether you were in control.

That's the bar.

Need Help with Your Agency Operations?

Thanks for reading.

If you're struggling with project management, client communication, or building the right systems for your agency, I can help.

Book a consultation to talk through your specific challenges.

Or get the complete framework in my book. Chapter 6 covers project management in depth, along with everything else you need to run a sustainable agency.

‍