This email will be short, I promise. 

Since the beginning of the year, my head has been around one thing: How can we keep our clients extremely happy from the start of our project to our very last interaction? Over delivering. Excellent client service. Meeting deadlines. Nailing every spec. Awing them.

But there's one clear thing that we've been missing, and that's quality. Quality isn't about being the best in the world. The quality of a service can be measured by meeting our client's spec. It's about being exactly who you said you'd be—and sometimes, just a little bit more.

Imagine this: I promise you 3 brand assets, and then deliver 4. You're happy. Why? Because I exceeded expectations. (self-imposed, but nonetheless exceeded.)

Now let's flip it. What if I promise you 10 brand assets, then only deliver 4? Suddenly, we're not heroes. We're the worst design studio you've ever seen.

The problem isn't the 4 assets, it isn't the assets themselves. The problem is breaking our promise.

Quality isn't some magical, unattainable standard. It's a simple equation: Do exactly what you said you would do. No more claiming we will do everything. No more impossible promises that set us up to fail.

Once we adopted this, quality became a simple term. Our communication with clients became clearer, our commitments more intentional, our team's goals more focused.

We make promises, then we keep them.

To my team - sorry for sometimes over-promising to our clients, and then expecting you to over-deliver.

And to my reader - Sorry that this mail wasn't short. Next time I'll meet the spec. 

- From the (former) Project Manager Who Once Promised Too Much

Paola

PS. And for our spanish speakers, I was listening to this podcast on my way to the office, and I 100% recommend it, it almost made me start meditating…