I ran into a comment by El Gaffney regarding planner teams…

More and more i’m starting to like the idea of planner teams. Many times a piece of business only gets staffed with one planner (account, connection, interactive) because that’s all the money “warrants.” I believe there’s overlap in these planning titles depending on the person but think there’d be real value in a pairing: to bounce ideas off of, to complement strengths (insights + new media, quant + qual, customer + user and to get strength in #’s when presenting briefs. plus, one can pick up slack on an account when the other gets too busy - can do all that proactive ideation that we love and get more involved at more points in the process. don’t know what this dynamic duo made me go on this rant. but here it is - fodder for your polygamous wedding which i’m so pissed i can’t make it to!!!

I think Seth has a valid point. In fact, two of our speakers from Goodby work as a planner team. If creatives can work together to concept, brainstorm and collaborate together, why not let the planners do the same? I think one of the inherent problems with planners is that our output is so intangible. Most companies and clients can’t justify paying for two people to do the same thing when that “thing” is so ambigious.

I’m sure the Goodby fellas will show us the secrets to bypass this. Are there are other planners out there that work as teams?