If you’re waiting for the perfect version of your agency’s next big internal process before you roll it out, you’re likely waiting too long.
This is a pattern I see time and again in agency leadership conversations: a brilliant new way of doing things gets scoped, scoped again, drafted, redrafted, reviewed, and re-reviewed… and then stalls completely. Not because it wasn’t good. But because it wasn’t perfect.
Meanwhile, the business continues to scale, creak and occasionally buckle under the weight of missing infrastructure. The pressure mounts. And the perfect version still isn’t live.
Here’s the shift I invite leaders to make: stop aiming for perfection. Aim for propulsion.
A beta version is the thing that helps you move forward. It’s a liveable, useable, just-good-enough version of the change your agency needs—whether that’s a new role framework, onboarding process, or client servicing doc. It’s what gives your team clarity today, even if it evolves tomorrow.
And yes, that beta version might not tick every stakeholder’s box. It might not be signed off by every senior leader or completely bulletproof. But here’s what it does do:
- Gets the idea out of a Google doc and into your culture
- Starts conversations that move the thing forward
- Stops your people sitting in silence wondering what ‘good’ looks like
Crucially, it also stops progress being held hostage by someone else’s bandwidth. (If you’ve ever heard the words “she hasn’t had time to review it yet”, you know what I mean.)
One of the founders I coach said it perfectly last week: “If we don’t put a beta version in place, we’re never going to have it.”
And that’s the crux. Beta versions unlock momentum. And momentum is what your agency needs most.
So what does that look like in practice?
- You sketch out a draft of the process.
- You state clearly: “This is a beta version. It’s what we’re using unless or until you have the time to improve it.”
- You commit to using it for a set period (say, 4 weeks) while gathering feedback.
- You book the follow-up discussion in advance to review what’s working and what’s not.
Because otherwise? You’re just chiselling a cathedral of processes that will never be finished.
The reality is: no internal process is ever final. The best ones live, breathe and evolve. The key is to get them breathing sooner, not later.
Andy