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“Targetprocess has been vital to the success of Starmark. And it has grown with us, from the very beginning when we really didn’t know what we were doing to now, where we are running like a well-oiled machine at entity number 80,565 and counting.”
When Starmark, an integrated marketing agency based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, realized the benefits of Agile, its leaders made a bold decision to embrace the methodology across the entire agency. What began as an experiment with one project team grew into a full-scale organizational transformation empowered by IBM Targetprocess. Starmark changed how it delivered work, how it collaborated with clients, and how it sustained its people, becoming an agile agency with:
In 2025, Starmark celebrated ten years and 260 sprints since it first adopted Agile and Targetprocess, and the company continues to push the boundaries of what is possible for an agile agency in the advertising industry.
Founded in 1978, Starmark is a full-service marketing communications agency serving clients in travel, education, healthcare, and B2B technology, including the Florida Keys & Key West, Amelia Island, Nova Southeastern University, Nickelodeon, Florida Power & Light, and Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital. With 45 employees and a strong partner ecosystem, the agency delivers everything from traditional campaigns and websites to immersive experiences in augmented and virtual reality with core specialties in branding, advertising, digital media, and data science.
For over thirty-five years, Starmark managed projects using a waterfall methodology. This approach worked well, and the company excelled in delivering services to its customers. In 2011, Starmark signed a 3-year project that included hardware, software, and front-end and back-end application development services. Because of the software development aspect of the work, the project leaders followed Agile methods to manage the project instead of the company’s traditional waterfall approach.
This decision led to dramatic improvements. The team collaborated better, there were fewer delays, and the overall delivery of the project was smoother. Starmark’s executive leaders saw the benefits and decided to adopt Agile for all new projects across the company. But scaling Agile across an agency of copywriters, designers, media buyers, and strategists was something very few agencies had done.
During the agency’s annual planning in the fall of 2014, senior leaders introduced the idea of making Agile a company-wide practice. To prepare, every leader received a short book on Agile to give them a baseline understanding of the concepts, principles, and workflows. Skepticism was high, but the idea soon took root.
Rather than attempt the transition alone, Starmark brought in an outside consulting group for assistance. The agency shut down for an entire week while every employee, from art directors to media planners, was trained in Agile practices. To make sure the methodology took hold, all training was done without screens or software. Employees worked with index cards, Sharpies, and white boards.
Once the Agile methodology was understood, the agency turned its attention to finding a tool that could support it. Several products were reviewed, including Jira and Trello, but neither offered the ideal balance of usability and depth for the agency’s creative needs. Then, the company discovered IBM Targetprocess.
“The product just has a wonderful user interface,” says Brett Circe, Chief Digital Officer at Starmark. “It was super friendly and easy to use for our creatives and still had the technical depth we wanted. Most importantly, it could scale to support our entire business.”
By January 1, 2015, the agency was running fully in Agile. Existing waterfall projects were allowed to complete untouched, but all new projects followed Agile from the beginning. Targetprocess became the hub of all activity, integrating with Basecamp, Miro, and Google Sheets. And it handled everything from sprint planning and time tracking to client budget reconciliation.
One of the most monumental shifts came in budgeting and client alignment. In the past, clients received lump-sum quotes, sometimes resulting in a string of change orders without a process in place to handle scope changes effectively as projects evolved. With Targetprocess, however, every project is broken into stories, each transparently priced. Clients can see exactly what they are paying for, and if they want to adjust scope, they can add or swap stories with full visibility into costs and timelines.
“Since adopting Agile, our client satisfaction scores are way up,” says Circe. “Six-month projects are delivered on time and on budget, which is critical for a fixed-fee, project-based agency like ours. And clients often remark that we ‘get it right’ the first time.”
The change order—long a source of tension in the industry—has disappeared from Starmark’s business processes. This new level of transparency helps Starmark provide concrete information during QBRs (quarterly business reviews) with clients, which builds trust, improves delivery, and deepens client relationships.
The way projects were estimated also changed. In one early comparison, a traditionally estimated project came in at $100,000, while the Agile roadmap for the same work priced it at $220,000. The difference wasn’t overbidding—it simply reflected the actual effort required to complete the project, according to the subject matter experts who would do the work. The client, when presented with the detailed roadmap, accepted the higher price without resistance. For Starmark, this meant greater profitability and fewer unpleasant surprises during delivery.
“In the past, projects were scoped by project managers without input from subject matter experts,” Circe says. “This often led to underbidding. But now, scoping is done by the people who will actually do the work. Clients get a much more accurate estimate upfront. They are happier, and since we do everything on a fixed-bid basis, it improves our profitability, too.”
Internally, the benefits were just as profound. Before Agile, long nights and weekend work were routine. After the shift, however, mandatory overtime became rare. Capacity planning in Targetprocess allowed the agency to balance workloads realistically, ensuring that each employee carried about 64 billable hours per sprint, with 16 hours reserved for internal meetings and activities. Structured schedules meant employees could leave the office at reasonable hours, and work-life balance improved. Employee engagement scores rose, and the agency retained more of its top talent.
Throughput also increased. By managing capacity, prioritizing high-value work, and tracking progress through sprint burn-up charts, Starmark found it could nearly double the volume of work without adding headcount. For example, when COVID forced the team to go fully remote, workflows were seamless. One remote employee in Portland didn’t even realize the rest of the office had closed. This was proof that the Targetprocess system was working exactly as intended.
Circe says, “Agile plus Targetprocess allows us to handle far more work with the same headcount, effectively increasing profit per person.”
Leadership also gained a new level of visibility. By using business value scoring within Targetprocess, executives now make portfolio decisions with confidence, knowing which projects truly matter to the bottom line. Even the agency president communicates the business value in Targetprocess based on billing cycles or client needs.
“We use a four-point business value scoring system (BV1-BV4), with BV1 being the highest priority,” says Circe. “For every sprint, we only allow five BV1 projects, so everyone knows what the most important work is for the sprint. This allows us to assign the right people and the right roles to the highest value projects.”
Starmark’s journey demonstrates that Agile is not just for software developers. With the right commitment and the right tools, an advertising agency transformed how it worked, delivering projects more profitably, transparently, and sustainably. The move to Agile, anchored by Targetprocess, allowed Starmark to grow throughput, protect margins, and foster a healthier culture for its employees.
Looking ahead, the agency plans to continue capturing hard metrics to quantify its gains. By sharing its story more broadly, Starmark is also positioned as a thought leader for companies exploring Agile outside the technology world.
For Starmark, Agile was not a process tweak but a reinvention of how an agency can work. Ten years and 260 sprints later, the results speak for themselves.
“Targetprocess has been vital to the success of Starmark,” Circe says. “And it has grown with us, from the very beginning when we really didn’t know what we were doing to now, where we are running like a well-oiled machine at entity number 80,565 and counting.”
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