Most agencies think they need to move faster, but they’re actually just moving in circles.

They confuse frantic activity with progress. Everyone’s “busy,” deadlines are tight, the team’s working nights and weekends, but projects still take forever to finish.

The real speed killer isn’t tools or processes – it’s that most agencies have completely backwards ideas about what “fast” actually means.

They think fast equals working longer hours, juggling more projects, saying yes to everything. But that’s not speed, that’s just chaos with a deadline.

The agencies that actually deliver fast aren’t the ones running around like headless chickens. They’re the ones who figured out that speed comes from doing fewer things better, not more things faster.

The Speed Lies Everyone Believes

Agency owners love bragging about how “fast-paced” their environment is.

“We move quickly here. We’re agile. We pivot fast. We ship fast.”

But when you look at their actual delivery times, projects still take months to complete. Clients are still waiting weeks for simple updates. The team is still working overtime to hit basic deadlines.

So what’s happening? They’re confusing motion with progress.

The Multitasking Myth

Most agencies think juggling 15 projects at once makes them faster.

The designer jumps between logo design, website mockups, and social media assets. Project manager hops from client call to status meeting to putting out fires. The developer switches between three different websites depending on which client is yelling loudest.

This isn’t efficiency. This is brainrot disguised as productivity.

Every time someone switches tasks, their brain needs 15-25 minutes to fully refocus.¹

So when your designer switches between 8 different projects in a day, they’re spending more time remembering where they left off than actually creating anything. 

When your copywriter jumps between five different brand voices, they’re constantly confused about which client wants “edgy” and which one wants “professional.”

You think you’re getting more done by keeping everyone busy. You’re actually destroying their ability to do quality work quickly.

The Agile Drama

Half the agencies claiming to be “agile” are just doing the same old slow process with different meeting names.

They break projects into sprints, hold retrospectives, use all the right buzzwords. But they’re still taking forever to deliver because they completely missed what agile actually means.

Most agencies think agile means having more meetings about the work instead of actually doing the work. They add daily standups, weekly planning sessions, monthly retrospectives – and wonder why projects take longer than before.

Real agile means getting working solutions to clients faster. Everything else is just meeting theater.

The Always-On Addiction

Agency owners think being available 24/7 makes them responsive.

Notifications all day. Emails at night. Weekend “emergency” calls for things that could wait until Monday.

This doesn’t make you fast. It makes you constantly putting out fires instead of preventing them.

When everything feels urgent, nothing actually is urgent. When you’re always available, clients stop planning ahead because they know you’ll drop everything for them.

You’ve trained them to be disorganized and trained yourself to live in constant crisis mode.

What Actually Kills Project Speed

The real speed killers aren’t the obvious things agencies obsess over.

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

“Let’s get everyone’s input on this.”

“We should run this by the team.”

“I want to make sure all stakeholders are aligned.”

These phrases are project speed killers. Every additional person in the decision-making process multiplies the time it takes to move forward.

You think you’re being thorough. You’re actually creating bottlenecks where simple decisions turn into week-long committee discussions.

Context Switching Costs

If you think your team is slow, it’s not because they’re incompetent. They’re slow because they’re constantly switching between different types of work, different clients, and different mental modes.

Monday morning: Logo design for Client A, website updates for Client B, strategy call for Client C, then back to logo design.

By the end of the day, they’ve touched five different projects but made meaningful progress on zero.

The Perfectionism Trap

“Let’s just make a few more tweaks.”

“This could be even better if we…”

“What if we tried one more approach?”

Good enough delivered on time beats perfect delivered late. And perfect delivered late beats never delivered at all.

Most clients would rather have a good solution today than a perfect solution next month. But agencies keep polishing work that was already ready to ship three versions ago.

Scope Creep Acceptance

“Sure, we can add that.”

“That’s just a quick change.”

“Let’s throw in a social media kit to make them happy.”

Every time you say yes to scope creep WITHOUT charging your clients, 

you’re not just adding work to the current project. You’re training clients that your timelines are suggestions, not commitments.

You’re also stealing time from other projects to accommodate the “quick additions” that turn into three days of extra work.

How to Actually Get Faster

Want to speed up project delivery? Stop adding more tools and start removing everything that slows you down.

Do Fewer Things at Once

This sounds obvious, but most agencies resist it because they’re afraid of turning down work.

Here’s the truth: taking on fewer projects simultaneously will increase your delivery speed dramatically.

When your designer works on one logo at a time instead of five logos all at once, they finish each one faster and with higher quality. When your copywriter focuses on one campaign instead of three, they write better copy with fewer revisions.

Limit work in progress. If someone’s working on three things, they’re not working on any of them effectively.

Make Decisions Faster

Most project delays happen while people are trying to decide what to do, not while they’re actually doing it.

The client needs to approve the design. The team needs to pick the creative direction. Leadership needs to sign off on the strategy.

The solution isn’t better ways to make decisions. It’s fewer people making each decision.

Assign one person to make creative decisions. One person to approve technical approaches. One person to sign off on strategy.

When five people need to agree on font choices, it takes two weeks. When one person decides, it takes five minutes.

Set Real Deadlines With Real Consequences

Most deadlines don’t feel urgent because everyone knows they’re flexible. The “Friday delivery” will probably happen the following Tuesday, so nobody treats Friday as actually important.

Start building consequences into your timelines:

“Design approval needed by Friday to maintain the launch date. If approval comes Monday or later, launch moves to the following week.”

Make it clear that delays have costs. Most clients will suddenly become much more decisive when they understand their indecision affects their timeline.

Stop Saying Yes to Everything

Every “small addition” steals time from other projects.

Every “quick favor” means something else gets delayed.

Every scope change you absorb for free teaches clients that your boundaries are negotiable.

Start treating your timeline like a budget. When clients want to add something, show them what has to be removed or delayed to accommodate it.

Batch Similar Work

Instead of jumping between design, copywriting, and strategy calls throughout the day, group similar work together.

Design day: Only work on visual stuff. Writing day: Only work on copy and content. Strategy day: Only planning and client calls.

When you’re not constantly switching between different types of thinking, you get into a groove that produces faster, better work.

Track Where Work Gets Stuck

Projects don’t usually get delayed because someone’s working slowly. They get delayed because finished work sits around waiting for the next person to pick it up.

Designer finishes the logo on Tuesday but doesn’t send it to the client until Thursday. Copywriter finishes the website content but it doesn’t get reviewed until the following week. Client approves the design but nobody starts building it for three days.

These gaps between “done” and “what’s next” are where time disappears. Most agencies never notice because they’re only watching when people are actively working, not when work is sitting idle.

Start paying attention to when things actually get finished versus when they move forward. You’ll be shocked how much time gets wasted in the handoffs.

The SPEED Mindset

The fastest agencies don’t optimize for looking busy. They optimize for finishing things.

They don’t measure how many hours everyone worked. They measure how many projects got delivered on time.

They don’t celebrate starting lots of new work. They celebrate completing existing work.

This requires a fundamental mindset shift from activity-based thinking to results-based thinking.

Your team working late doesn’t mean you’re moving fast. It means your planning is broken.

Your calendar being full doesn’t mean you’re productive. It means you can’t focus on important work.

Your Slack being active doesn’t mean you’re communicating well. It means you’re interrupting each other constantly.

Start Getting Faster Today

Pick one project that’s currently in progress.

Count how many other projects each team member is also working on.

If it’s more than two, you’ve found your speed problem.

Finish that project before starting anything new. Track how much faster it gets completed when people can actually focus on it.

Then apply the same principle to everything else.

Most agencies discover they can double their delivery speed just by letting people finish things before starting new things.

Stop confusing busy with fast. 

Start equating focus with results.

Now that you understand what actually makes projects faster, the next challenge is getting your team to actually implement these changes instead of just nodding along and going back to their old chaotic habits.

Because knowing what to do and actually doing it are two completely different problems. Most agencies get stuck endlessly planning the “perfect” implementation instead of just starting with one simple change.

If you want to learn how to get your team moving on these speed improvements without getting trapped in planning paralysis, read our guide on why overthinking efficiency kills productivity and how to start taking action today.

If you want help tracking which projects are actually moving forward versus which ones are just consuming time, Astravue makes it easy to see where work gets stuck and where real progress happens.