“Round three was never a quality problem. The client was re-arguing things we had already settled, because they could still see us arguing.”Odessa Ruiz, head of operations, HATCHMARK
The expensive misdiagnosis
HATCHMARK ran a clean kanban in Trello: a list per stage, a card per post, the client invited as a guest. Rounds averaged 3.8 per post, which the leadership read as a creative quality issue. So they hired another designer.
It did not move the number, because the number was never about the work.
What was actually happening
- Round two showed every comment from round one. Clients scrolled up, re-read decisions that had already been made, and re-opened them. Every round inherited the last one’s noise.
- Internal debate sat in the client’s view. Two team members disagreeing about a hook is healthy. A client watching them disagree loses confidence in whatever gets recommended.
- Nothing was visible across clients. Twenty-two boards meant twenty-two places to check, so stalled posts surfaced at the Friday stand-up rather than when they stalled.
What changed
Scoped rounds did most of the work. Each round of feedback gets its own thread, and resolved comments archive with the round instead of following the post around forever. A client opening round two sees round two.
Internal discussion moved to team-only threads that clients never see, so the team can argue properly and the client receives a decision rather than a debate. Boards also carry a revision limit, so “one more small thing” has a defined end.
Where they are now
Rounds fell to 2.1 with the same creative team and the same brief. The designer they hired to solve a problem they did not have now works on new business. And because seats are unlimited, the whole client side gets invited rather than everything funnelling through one overloaded contact.
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