Agency Operations Playbook for 10-20 Person Teams

At 10-20 people, you're officially running a mid-sized agency. You have PMs, leads, junior staff, maybe a bit of specialization. Revenue is probably $500K-$1.5M annually.

You also have a serious problem: complexity is outpacing your ability to manage it.

Projects slip. Clients don't know who to contact. Teams duplicate work.

Your financials lag two weeks behind reality. Growth actually slows down because operations can't keep up.

The ops playbook at this stage is about building systems that don't require you personally to function.

Create Distinct Departments (Even at 10 People)

Most agencies at this size are still fully integrated. Everyone touches every project. This works until it doesn't.

Create clear roles:

• Delivery (project leads and executors who do the work)
• Project Management (people who manage timelines, clients, scope)
• Business Development (people who bring in new work)
• Operations (you, and possibly one operations person)

This structure seems heavy for 10 people. It's not. It's the difference between working in your business and working on your business.

Your BD person should be in business development, not jumping into projects because someone's busy. Your PMs should manage projects, not do project work. Deliver people should deliver.

Implement a CRM for All Client Relationships

At 5 people, you remember everything about your clients. At 10+, you don't.

Someone transfers clients to another PM and loses the relationship history. A potential client calls and nobody remembers previous conversations.

Get a CRM (HubSpot free version works). Every conversation, every touchpoint, every deal goes in the CRM.

When a client calls, you pull the CRM, see the last three conversations, and sound like you actually know them. When you fire a client, the next PM takes over with full context.

This isn't sexy, but it prevents 10-15 client relationship disasters yearly.

Build a Resource Planning Spreadsheet

At 10+ people, allocating people to projects is complex. You have junior staff, mid-level staff, leads.

Some people can handle solo projects. Others need support.

Create a simple spreadsheet:

• Column A: Project name
• Column B: Start/end dates
• Column C-M: Team members with percentage allocated

Update it weekly. When someone asks "can I take this project?" you see their spreadsheet utilization and have an answer in 30 seconds.

This prevents:

• Overallocating one person (burnout)
• Underallocating (people get bored)
• Miscommunications about who's doing what

Create SOPs for Your Core Processes

You have 10+ people now. They're making decisions you didn't know they were making.

Projects are being delivered in different ways. Quality is inconsistent.

Document your three most important processes:

• Project intake and kickoff
• Client feedback and revisions
• Project delivery and handoff

These should each be 2-3 pages. Not 20-page tome nobody reads - just the essential steps.

Your team should be able to read the SOP and execute it. If they need constant clarification, the SOP is too vague.

Update these SOPs quarterly as you learn better ways to do things.

Separate Account Management From Delivery

This is the biggest operational shift at this stage. One person should own the client relationship. A different person (or team) does the delivery work.

The account manager owns:

• Client health and satisfaction
• Upselling
• Renewal or expansion
• Communication

The delivery lead owns:

• Timeline and quality
• Escalations back to the account manager
• Resource allocation
• Budget and margin

This separation prevents the account manager from over-promising and the delivery team from under-delivering.

Run Monthly All-Hands Meetings

At 10+ people, your team isn't homogeneous anymore. You have different skill sets, different priorities, different levels of experience.

Run a monthly all-hands. 60 minutes. Cover:

• Company metrics (revenue, margin, profitability)
• New clients and wins
• Where you're headed strategically
• Any changes to processes or policies

This prevents the siloed feeling where delivery teams don't know what business development does, and vice versa.

Build a Project Finance Dashboard

You're too large to track everything in a spreadsheet. You need visibility into:

• Revenue by project
• Cost by project (labor primarily)
• Margin by project
• Budget vs. actual

Most agencies track this quarterly or monthly. Track it weekly.

If a project is trending toward negative margin, you catch it week two, not week eight. This saves thousands in cost overruns.

Create an Annual Operating Budget

You have 10-20 people making $400-800K+ in salary/contractors. You have rent, software, insurance, travel, conferences. You have no idea if you're actually profitable without running your books.

Create a simple annual budget:

• Revenue: based on your pipeline
• COGS (direct labor): 50-60% of revenue
• Salary and benefits: 20-25% of revenue
• Operations (rent, software, insurance): 8-12% of revenue
• Profit: 10-15% of revenue

If you're not hitting 10% profit, you don't have a business - you have jobs.

Establish Hiring Standards Now

At 10+ people, you're hiring constantly. Every hire either gets better or worse. There's no neutral.

Create a hiring standard:

• What skills are you looking for? - What values matter (communication, ownership, learning)?

• What's your interview process (usually 2-3 rounds)? - Who makes the final hire decision?

Stick to your standard. Don't hire the "almost good" person. You'll regret it by month three.

FAQ

How do I transition from fully integrated to departmentalized?

Start by separating BD from delivery. Give your BD person one month to focus on business development. See what changes.

Then separate account management. It takes 3-6 months to fully separate, and that's fine.

What's the minimum CRM I need?

HubSpot free or Notion database work fine. You need to capture: company name, contacts, last interaction date, next steps, deal value, deal stage. That's it. Don't overengineer.

When do I need an operations manager?

When you're spending more than 30% of your time on operations (scheduling, budgeting, tools, processes). That's usually around 12-15 people. An ops manager at that point costs less than the time you'll save.

How do I handle team members who want to work across departments?

Set boundaries. Someone can be 80% delivery and 20% business development, but not 50/50.

Partial allocations cause people to do both jobs poorly. Make a choice.