Orbit30: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Scrum

What a freelancer freeze, a daily ritual, and a sandwich bribe taught me about creative team culture.

“We were a million bucks over budget, morale was shaky, and some of the designers had vanished behind Photoshop files and fake coffee cups. Enter the scrum. What happened next was one of the best leadership plays I’ve ever witnessed.”

Welcome to another edition of Orbit30, a special Trajectory series reflecting on my three decades (and counting) in the creative industry. These essays revisit the experiences, teams, and turning points that shaped my career—while exploring the lessons I’m carrying forward as I navigate new creative terrain today.

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In early 2016, I was a relatively fresh hire at Match Marketing Group in Mississauga, ON, working as an Art Director after a long client-side career. I was still learning the ropes of agency life when the creative and production team—25 or more of us—got pulled aside for an all-hands meeting.

We gathered at the “high tops,” a few standing-height tables in the open-concept war zone that was our creative department. Our VP of Ops, Rob Rathke, stood at the center of the circle with the air of a man about to deliver bad news—and he did.

Turns out, our team had ended the previous year one million dollars over budget. Not great.

One million dollars over budget, you say?

How did it happen? A perfect storm of unchecked freelance bloat, inefficient resourcing, and people (let’s be honest) working the system. ADs and CDs were booking freelance designers like candy—long-term, full-day, on-site. It had gotten so casual that I couldn’t tell who was full-time and who wasn’t. Some designers padded their schedules with fake bookings. Others disappeared mid-afternoon, leaving strategic props behind—coffee cups and unlocked desktops with open PSD files—to feign activity.

Does anyone remember the Bud Light Institute commercials?

Meanwhile, some of us were in the trenches—grinding through brand decks, social campaigns, retail signage and pitch work. And the kicker? The company was footing the bill for both sides of that imbalance.

Rob had had enough.

He issued a challenge: “Freelancer free” for the first quarter of 2016.

If we made it through January, he’d buy lunch. If we made it through Q1, he’d take the team out to a VIP movie night.

This wasn’t an arbitrary carrot. Just a few weeks earlier, in December 2015, our team had gone to see The Force Awakens together as a holiday outing—and it had been a massive hit. There’s something about watching a new Star Wars chapter with cocktails and apps delivered to your seat that bonds people. Rob knew what he was doing dangling that again.

But the real change Rob implemented wasn’t just a perk-based challenge. It was structural.

Enter the scrum.

Every morning at 9:30am sharp, our entire creative department would leave our desks and huddle up around the high tops. Each person would give a very quick rundown of what they were working on that day. Not the week—that day.

As someone new to agency life and still finding my footing, I found this prospect slightly terrifying. I was surrounded by veterans working on prestige clients like Pepsi, Diageo, Tropicana and Subway, while I was holding it down with Whiskas, Pedigree, Cesar, and Misfits (pet food brands, not punk bands). I wasn’t sure how my updates would land.

But something surprising happened the very first day: Transparency. Alignment. Relief.

Overworked people got immediate support.
Designers who had bandwidth were put to work.
CDs and ADs who had been drowning saw deadlines ease up—sometimes that very afternoon.

The other upside? People started to dip into projects outside their usual brand lanes. Designers who lived in Uncle Ben’s or Classico land got to try something fun for a JM Smucker Company brand or pulled onto Lay’s. People who only did retail displays suddenly got to work on social, or pitch decks. It gave people a creative reset. Just enough variety to keep the brain buzzing.

And as the days went by, something deeper set in.

The scrum turned strangers into teammates.

In a world where we were siloed by brand and didn’t really know our peers, the morning ritual cracked everything open. People shared stories—about their clients, their projects, their lives. We found common ground over music, movies, and weekend plans. Slowly, the circle felt less like a check-in and more like a huddle.

Soon, Rob added a small beer and wine fridge to the department and kicked off Thirsty Thursdays. At 4pm, we’d step away from our laptops, clink glasses at the high tops, then finish the day with a little less stress and a little more respect. It worked.

Thirsty Thursday at the famous Match high tops.

Brenna, Ada and Vika preparing the wine, cheese and dips for Thirsty Thursday at Match Marketing Group in 2016.

And that freelancer freeze?

We nailed it. January came and went, freelancer-free. Rob delivered California Sandwiches for lunch (veal parm, if you’re wondering). We stayed focused and scrappy, and we hit the Q1 goal too. Our VIP night out happened in April 2016, complete with drinks, apps, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on the big screen. Whether you loved or hated the movie, the vibe was electric.

Lunch is served—Cali Sammies on Rathke!

We even had signs taped to the concrete pillars around the office tracking our progress—like factory signs counting “X days without an incident.” Only ours read: “X Days Freelancer-Free.” They became a point of pride.

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Looking back, it’s not the free lunch or the movie that I remember most. It’s the feeling of being seen. Of watching a department become a team because someone decided it was time to lead—with intention, empathy, and just enough structure to keep us honest.

At Orbit, we believe in creative culture that lifts everyone—where workloads are transparent, effort is respected, and people feel they belong. The scrum was one of the simplest, smartest moves I’ve seen in 30 years of creative work. I feared it at first. Now, I’d fight for it.

Hat tip to Rob Rathke. Man of action. Sandwich enthusiast. Leadership gold.