Case Study: First Review Cycle for a Distributed Digital Agency
Client snapshot
- Distributed digital agency: Design, CX, product management, software engineering
- Approximately 35 people across the US, Brazil, and India
- Engagement: career framework plus end-to-end review cycle
Key numbers
8 weeks from kickoff to final debrief
89+ feedback conversations held across the organization
18 Growth Advisors trained
Up to 6 hours saved per advisor on case and feedback memo prep
The situation
The agency had been growing quickly for three years: great client work, talented team carefully chosen across three continents, strong leadership team. They had already started building a career framework internally, because they knew it was a crucial next step. But between client development, interactions, and focused delivery work, there was no time to finish it, let alone run a full cycle. They needed someone who had run this before.
The starting point
- A framework built on expectations, not behaviors. They already had a draft, which is rare. But it described abstract expectations rather than concrete behaviors.
- No one had ever run a review end to end. The invisible work: calendar alignment, submission tracking, committee prep, feedback memo review, debrief discussions.
- A distributed team across three time zones. Design, product, CX, and engineering, sitting in the US, Brazil, and India.
What we did
- Built a behaviour-driven career framework aligned with the agency's strategy
- Ran an end-to-end review cycle: self-reflections, feedback collection, calibration committees, and final delivery
- Created a transparent skills map: full visibility on skills, growth areas, aspirations, and placement fit
- Trained the leadership on self-reflection writing, feedback collection, and coached advisors on delivery
- Equipped one team member to own and run the cycles independently
What they came away with
- Full team picture: For the first time in three years, leadership had visibility on skills, growth areas, and aspirations across every person
- Patterns surfaced: Recurring development needs emerged clearly
- Smarter placement decisions: Role mismatches identified, giving context for lateral moves
- Capability gaps made visible: Skill gaps informed hiring and development priorities
- A baseline for what comes next: Every future review builds on this cycle
Contact
Book a discovery call: cal.com/pauline-bertry/people-ops. No pitch-talk, just a conversation.