Map capabilities to the customer journey
Identify who provides customer insight, positioning, program execution, operations and measurement. One person may cover several capabilities, but important work should not depend on an unnamed volunteer. Include the connection to sales and customer-facing teams when identifying gaps.
Choose what to retain and share
Keep ownership of strategic choices and institutional knowledge clear even when specialists help with delivery. Compare recurring work with temporary needs before hiring. An outside provider can add capacity, but internal approvals, access and handover still consume team time and need an owner.
Sequence the change
Prioritize the constraint that prevents other work from succeeding. Fixing a qualification rule may matter more than adding another campaign producer. Define the responsibilities and first useful outputs of each role, then review whether the new structure improves decisions, delivery and learning.
Put the decision into practice
- Map capabilities and owners.
- Identify recurring bottlenecks.
- Separate permanent and temporary needs.
- Define interfaces with sales.
- Sequence hires and supplier work by dependency.
Bring the business question, the evidence already available and the constraints that matter. Discuss your next step with Nancy Chou.
Design around work before adding roles
Map the recurring customer, planning, production and measurement work. Identify which tasks require continuous internal context and which can be supplied through a specialist or bounded project. A new title can obscure an unchanged dependency if the person still lacks authority, access or capacity. Use actual workload and decision friction to justify the next addition.
Sequence the team change
Choose the capability that removes the most consequential bottleneck and define what becomes possible once it is in place. Assign coordination and approval ownership so specialists do not receive contradictory priorities. Retain a transition plan for work moving between internal and external contributors. Review quality and continuity after the change rather than use team size as the measure of organizational maturity. Assess marketing capability before hiring more people.
Specialists waiting for one missing brief
Hypothetical decision exercise. Suppose a team adds channel specialists while every program waits for agreement on audience and offer. The next useful capability may be strategic ownership and a workable brief rather than another execution role. Map the bottleneck and its dependencies. After the change, review whether specialists can act on clear priorities and whether the customer decision improves.