One operating playbook, applied at two companies — and tested again under constraint.
I lead creative teams, but the work I love most is the part people rarely see: designing how an organization actually runs — who owns what, how work flows, how people grow, and how the team proves its value.
I’ve built that operating backbone twice, at Vivint and at NRG Energy, with the same five-step playbook. Here’s the playbook, the proof, and how it held up when a 2026 restructure cut the team in half.
By the numbers
projects a year through one intake system
creatives reorganized into three strategic pillars
one-size process replaced by seven purpose-built workflows
team growth in 2025 under a shared leveling system
projected savings in the NRG.com digital strategy
over goal on the first enterprise campaign through the model
01 — Discover: diagnose before you design
Don’t walk in with an org chart already drawn. Find out what’s actually broken.
Vivint: Creative had grown up as a service desk, funded piecemeal. Sponsors “owned” the people they paid for, and the loudest request won.
NRG: “Designer” was a catch-all title hiding real skill gaps, email ran on bad data, and IT work sat on the creative team.
The pattern: both teams were organized around who was asking, not what the business needed.
02 — Design: restructure around function, then fund it
Organize around strategic functions, give each one a charter, and back it with a business case.
Vivint: Pooled funding and reorganized 31 creatives into three pillars — Media, Agency, Design. NRG adopted it as the benchmark after the acquisition.
NRG: Consolidated scattered, separately funded teams into one Creative & Digital Experience function with five pillars.
Funding: Tied a ~$380K expansion to $14M+ in annual install value. Built and owned a ~$2.5M budget at NRG.
03 — Implement: standardize how work flows
A good team can still drown in a bad process. Rebuild how work comes in, gets prioritized, and ships.
Vivint: One intake, prioritization, and approval process on one platform — 3,400+ projects a year, all visible.
NRG: Replaced an inefficent, marketing-manager led project work flow, to a project-manager system. The PM team turned requests into seven purpose-built workflows, enabling a clearer role definition between marketing and our team.
Result: One core workflow now covers ~80% of requests, and every workflow improves through retros.
04 — Nurture: give people a clear way to grow
Structure only lasts if people know where they fit and how they grow.
Vivint: A six-level leveling framework across creative, UX, media, and design — one shared standard to hire and promote against.
NRG: Written tenets: human-first leadership, titles that match real skills, and a clear growth path for everyone.
Result: Guided the team’s growth from 14 to 24 in 2025, including three senior leaders.
05 — Grow: set goals and score them honestly
Make the strategy visible, and keep score honestly.
Vivint: Framed the 2024 strategy around one idea — creative as a strategic partner — with five goals behind it.
NRG: Four goal pillars, each marked done, in progress, or not started, and shared openly — including what wasn’t done.
Why it matters: being honest about what isn’t done is what makes leadership believe you about what is.
The strategy layer
The operating model is half of it. The other half is setting direction.
Brand: Twelve discovery sessions across NRG shaped the “Brighter Together” platform, launched company-wide and delivered almost entirely in-house.
Digital: An NRG.com strategy projecting ~$1.7M in savings against ~$1M of investment.
Foundations: Rebuilt email and web templates, data, and deliverability so the program could scale.
The playbook under constraint
In 2026, a restructure took the team from 13 creatives to 6, with no production resources. So we changed what the team was for: creative direction, brand protection, and the high-stakes problems — not volume.
Intake gate: every request gets one answer — engage, defer, redirect, or decline.
Clear ownership: direction, sequencing, ideas, and escalation each have one owner.
Deliberate cadence: weekly creative direction, biweekly intake, monthly “State of the Work.”
Better measures: clearer briefs, faster decisions, earlier invitations — not deliverable counts.
Same playbook, much smaller team. It’s the version I’m proudest of.
What the team said
“By far one of the best structured teams I’ve worked with, and a refreshing experience of what a great creative team can be and do.” — Team member, NRG
“In all my 20+ years in corporate America, this team has been THE BEST to support.” — Cross-functional partner, NRG
“In my career I’ve never felt more supported, or been happier to be part of a team — and much of that starts at the top with your leadership.” — Team member, NRG
The creative work is what people noticed. What I’m proudest of is underneath it: teams that knew what they were for, and systems that let good people do their best work.
That’s the work I want to keep doing — partnering with an executive team to design how the organization runs. If that’s what you need, let’s talk.