Tools of the Trade is an AgencySpy feature to help highlight the many tools that help make advertising and marketing folks successful. The tools can be anything that helps you perform at your top form, from your favorite drafting table to your best software program to a lucky pen, a vintage typewriter or a pair of headphones.
Next up is Max Doblin, director of strategy and operations at Brooklyn creative and experiential agency Game Seven.
Max Doblin uses Forecast by Harvest to help best utilize his team’s resources.
What is one tool you use all the time at work, and how does it inspire your work?
Forecast by Harvest has been a massive game changer for me in terms of resourcing and understanding the bandwidth of our team on a weekly basis.
Why is it your favorite tool?
Forecast is great because I can view hours by team, individual or project. On an individual level, I can see which projects a strategist is on and how many hours we expect them to spend on each project that week. We’ve been able to distribute our workload across the entire team more evenly and prevent imbalanced resourcing. Our team meets a few times per week and we’ll update our hourly estimates to keep things as accurate as possible.
How did you acquire your tool or hear about it for the first time?
We use Harvest for time tracking, which launched Forecast as a tandem tool. Previously, we were using gut instinct and Excel sheets.
How does it help you be successful?
As a department head, I constantly have visibility across everyone on our team and can make much quicker resourcing recommendations when a new project comes in. This has helped us to become a lot more efficient and data driven when it comes to mapping out time.
Does it have sentimental value?
Not yet, perhaps in 20 years.
Do you think your tool could go TikTok viral? Why or why not?
Yes, but only on the corporate side of TikTok. It’s super easy to use and has the potential to solve a lot of resourcing, bandwidth, and burnout issues faced at every level.
We want to know what tools you use to make you successful. If you’d like to contribute or know someone who would want to be featured in Tools of the Trade, contact kyle.obrien@adweek.com and fill out our survey.