Working towards the same goal, different product cultures may build entirely different products. Each takes on challenges differently on a fundamental level. Some delve into understanding problems thoroughly while others lean into building and shipping fast. In the meantime, tiny details of cultural style determine the fate of products. Sure, both cultures may very well design good solutions. Both may produce the best. But, if you look closely, you can easily spot the cultural traits that formed a product, even shaping it in a way that becomes an inseparable part of it. “How you do it” immensely influences what you come up with.

I was fortunate enough to get my hands dirty on both ends, building products at an agency for clients and building things in-house. Though the end goal is always the same, coming up with a unique set of solutions, the details that define those products varied greatly. Whereas an agency is where you focus on your craft and excel at the finest details, doing things in-house meant shipping fast at the expense of not being perfect. And cultural attributes that are codified in teams’ DNAs decided how a particular solution is being designed.

Doing by the book. Working at a good agency means experts from different fields toiling together to architect the best solutions. Experts, who closely watch trends, user expectations, and competitors, are on the clock, doing what they do the best, individually. Fighting for insights, users, expectations. I still remember and reminisce the times I spent at our office, where everyone was somewhat expert in their fields and collaborated excessively to solve the problems they faced. Despite working on various problems from various industries, we’d gather around tables and exchange ideas on how we can solve a particular problem UX-wise. Working with such expertise-density was a privilege, and only possible when everyone is a master at their craft. That said, on the flip side, giving the utmost attention to details in the search for perfection is actually what sometimes paints agencies slow in the eyes of customers. Though generally, they’re right in their search and results prove their worth eventually when granted the necessary time for their craft, it also sometimes creates conflicts when experts stick to their expertise like a zealot and strictly follow specific methodologies in the name of their craft, not for results.

Excellence as an end goal. At an agency, where you’ve got limited power in making decisions and are not judged by the end results as your contract is not lifelong most of the time, the end goal may easily turn into something rather controversial, developing the best solution in the time you granted, even though excellence is not being sought after at that particular time. Being somewhat free from business results also fosters this approach and allows agency people to instinctively gravitate toward their own craft in the search for satisfaction, since, after all, we all seek meaning in our professional endeavours. Operators from different disciplines, all choose to focus on creating the best bit of the big picture, wind up slowing down production for increasing quality as a result. In a perfect lab environment where time is abundant, taking each and every step in a playbook may let you engineer the best solution. But, mostly, time is a very sensitive constraint, and you know you can not do anything you wish to do. Actually, the great agency people I worked with were those who knew how and when to make trade-offs. Yet, I’ve yet to see such devotion to excellence in an in-house setting. Plus, excellence entails quirks, a set of rules and principles of someone’s own, which are hard to cultivate and comprehend. Which also makes it harder to commit concessions or collaborate with other parties involved in building things. “Disagree and commit” becomes harder to come by since everyone is so invested in defending their ground, in the name of searching excellence.

Carrying the users’ banners. A weird fact but, in my experience, agency people were those who were marching for users. I bet this is not always the case and I’m definitely not generalising anything here, but out of respect for their craft and also being a bit isolated from business realities, agency folks care about user needs dearly. Whenever we’d gather around with clients, I vividly remember we were the ones who make our stands in the name of users, forming a picket line and not allowing any technical constraint or financial limit pass us. This obviously did not only stem from our love for users but also being partially responsible for results. On the other end of the spectrum, business owners, or those who are working in-house, deal with myriad details that may affect product development, from compliance issues to financial expectations, and seeing the big picture gives them a better point on where to make concessions. However catering to user needs their top priority in principle, priorities change especially when there are many of them around. There many banners to carry around, their order may vary by time, yet they all come under the banner of business when working in-house.

Becoming a domain expert overnight. This was our forte and a curse, actually. It was always impressive for our clients that how fast we started talking with their jargon and understanding their businesses. It, in my opinion, separates good agencies from great ones, being able to absorb loads of information and making sense of a particular business on a whim. We were good at this, and I remember clients were in awe sometimes. But, it’s also a curse, because no matter how fast we were to get up to speed, it’s, again in my opinion, can not be comparable to anyone’s knowledge who spent a good ten or fifteen years in a particular vertical. Creative and smart people can solve many problems, in many ways, most of the time better than exhausted, siloed professionals who are not passionate enough due to external factors. But, domain experts are hard to breed, and they’re the ones who make the judgment calls. I believe a domain expert have a better chance than a hired expert in creating something unique, but, on the other hand, most of the time no one is actually in pursuit of uniqueness.

Being the teacher. For agency folk, it boils down to one fact when it comes to product development. The whole project is another student for you. You do everything, if you’re a good teacher, for your students to grow them to become the best version of themselves. You sometimes try techniques of your own, your own inventions to educate your pupils. But, you stay responsible for them for a limited amount of time. You can feel proud of them, you can even see their success as your doing. Nevertheless, you also know, you’re not the only teacher who raised them whether they become extremely successful or end up being someone mediocre.

In-house thinking is a bit different than you may have at an agency. If you’re strapped for resources, you’re basically doing what’s necessary and shipping something is the ultimate goal. There are experts in your team, there are operators and specialists, but the whole team is on a task of putting something out in the open. If you’re swimming in resources, what’s to come out depends on where you are, talent-wise. Building something with a high-talent team, and having resources is the cherry on top. You can go experimental, you can put bets on many hypotheses, and can decisively build shiny products. But building with a team that has low ambition, and having resources may be a catalyst, slowing you down further, emptying the already low ambition bars.

On the other hand, stakes are a bit higher working in-house. You’re officially responsible for the results, you’re defined by the results, and also, you’re dependent on results. If things go your way, you win, on every level. If you fail, it’s a big failure. This also explains the banner situation. You and your teams essentially carry the banners of business, not users’. Concessions are made in exchange for speed, and trade-offs emerge based on a larger set of variables, from compliance issues to keeping many stakeholders happy simultaneously. That does not necessarily mean you upset your users, but you sometimes make decisions based on the probability of how upset your users could get after a certain move.

We can get to the ultimate question now: which is better? Building a product on your own or collaborating with a group of experts as a complementary unit to your organisation. Well, top companies are trying to mimic the agency culture in-house, especially for their PDE teams. Choosing from different backgrounds, and forming cross-disciplined teams who are experts in their fields, but also understand the realities of a business. It’s really hard to align high-passion experts on some grand metrics or a vision. Giving them enough space to work on their craft while keeping them interested in company goals. But when achieved, I believe you’ll feel that you’re on a path to do magical things. After breathing the air at an agency amongst many experts, I always wanted my teams to work with such a commitment, such devotion to their craft. That determination, if shared across a product team, can bring the best results for both banners.