CASE STUDY
Aligned. Scalable. Measurable: How Cella Rewired Creative Ops for an EdTech Leader
There’s no magic bullet for sustained creative and marketing effectiveness. But a strong operational foundation comes remarkably close. Without it, even the most talented creatives and strategists hit a ceiling.
Client Need
By implementing a squad-based structure, our EdTech client’s marketing organization aimed to improve cross-functional collaboration and delivery. But a year in, their Creative Services team continued to feel the pressure:
Growing demand strained a lean team, and inconsistent intake processes presented challenges in prioritizing and launching work with full alignment.
Unclear project management blurred lines of responsibility, and external partners were engaged inconsistently, causing delays and adding to the frustration.
Without proper prioritization, governance or metrics, the team relied on instinct, not insights.
Underdeveloped performance tracking and data utilization made it difficult to measure impact or allocate resources confidently.
The team was trapped in a reactive rut, and their strategic contribution was diminishing. So, the client reached out to Cella for a solution.
Together, we set the goal for an operational transformation: To create an adaptive, aligned, insight-driven operational framework that could evolve with their business and realign creative operations with marketing’s strategic goals.
Cella's Solution
This transformation was grounded in three core pillars: strategy, structure and sustainable growth.
We started by strengthening the foundation.
We began with a comprehensive operations assessment to evaluate the team’s structure, operational model and role clarity (RACI definitions). By evaluating the squad-based model and daily practices, we identified opportunities for:
- Cost control and efficiency gains
- Better alignment between the teams, their workflows and current/future service offerings
This led us to build a tailored governance framework which defined roles and responsibilities and future career-pathing for the marketing organization.
Then, we conducted workshops with marketing leadership and stakeholders. These sessions were crucial for:
- Defining a unified mission, vision and values
- Aligning leadership on key operational metrics to guide long-term decision-making
We worked on building a scalable, smart intake model.
With strategic alignment in place, we turned to a persistent friction point: intake.
The existing framework had good bones: documented processes, trained teams and scalable tech. But execution had drifted. As team structures and business needs evolved, workarounds, inconsistent oversight and ad hoc planning left Creative disconnected from strategy. Recognizing the risk, the client wanted Cella to realign and future-proof their intake model.
Through targeted workshops and discovery, Cella introduced a focused intake process to realign structure with scale. Our approach included:
- Clear intake ownership and governance: We defined roles and decision points in the intake framework, bringing consistency and control to how marketing initiatives entered the pipeline.
- Embedded decision-tree logic and intake validation: We integrated intake logic, refreshed forms and improved intake validation, reducing rework and improving visibility into capacity and priorities.
- Refreshed intake forms: We recommended centralized workflow oversight, clear status ownership within the project management tool and standardized processes.
The result? The Creative Services and Marketing teams could shift from reactive execution to strategic enablement.
We recommended embedding operational intelligence into the system.
With structure restored, we shifted focus to performance measurement and continuous improvement. Recommended measures included:
- Introducing operational reporting frameworks to surface actionable insights
- Improving estimation, prioritization and intake through refined workflows
- Institutionalizing capacity planning to increase creative bandwidth
Together, these upgrades would empower the team to deliver higher-quality outputs with greater speed and consistency.
We introduced a system that would help them scale with agility.
Transformation doesn’t end with implementation, especially not in high-volume, agile environments. To ensure long-term adoption, we recommended:
- Structured feedback loops
- Collaborative enhancements to workflows
- Roadmap for ongoing improvements
We also aligned marketing leadership around a culture of operational clarity and continuous improvement to catalyze creativity, insight, efficiency and scale.
The Results
Streamlined Intake, Predictable Delivery Governance and standardized intake bring clarity to how work enters the pipeline, reducing rework, shortening timelines and making delivery more consistent.
Real-Time Visibility, Smarter Decisions Robust reporting and capacity-tracking give leaders actionable insights to prioritize work, allocate resources and measure impact.
Workflow Integration That Sticks We recommended embedding processes, clear status ownership and centralized oversight directly into their project management tool, keeping teams aligned from request to delivery.
Scalable Capacity, Reduced Burnout With improved planning, the team now has the foundation to scale with demand, boosting internal capability and reducing outsourcing dependency.
Creative That Moves the Business By shifting from reactive execution to strategic enablement, Creative is now positioned to deliver work that’s aligned, measurable and clearly tied to enterprise goals.
Transparency and Collaboration Shared visibility into workflows and ownership fosters stronger alignment, faster feedback and deeper trust across teams.
Conclusion
Cella’s engagement laid the foundation for transforming Creative Services into a modern, insight-driven, scalable function, aligned with business goals and built for brand-led growth.
