“Building an efficient, effective, creative team structure isn’t easy. But finding that perfect-fit team — supported by the right structure — is how meaningful, memorable campaigns and experiences are created.”
— Stoke Research Report
Going into 2025, only 33% of creative leaders were confident that their team structure positively impacted productivity. That number is far too low.
Last year, Stoke partnered with Trend Candy to produce a research report to dig into how creative teams operated, including ways they might adjust to make their work more effective and their people more engaged. We interviewed hundreds of creative leaders from various industries to ask how their teams are structured, what is or isn’t working, and where they want to see a difference in their creative output. Our research and analysis uncovered a series of findings that indicate creative teams need more — more support, more structure, and more resources to get their work across the finish line.
One of our most important findings is that common team structures aren’t working. In this post, we’ll talk about why they aren’t working and how executive teams can adjust how they organize their people for better creative outputs.
Three common creative team structures and how they operate
In our research, we identified the three kinds of team structures that appear across many organizations: the sticky trios model, the agile model, and the hybrid model. While not all teams will fall neatly into a single category, most are at least somewhat represented in one of these models. Here’s how they work.
The “sticky trios” model
In this model, teams are segmented according to three core, interconnected objectives focused on a respective goal: long-term brand focus, short-term performance, and brand strategy. “Sticky trios” gets its name from the three clear, distinguished roles that fall neatly, if sometimes a little stiffly, into these categories. This model is a step outside the more traditional team setup that focuses on client-service relationships to support a more direct and cohesive workflow.
The agile team model
This model — meant to allow teams to adapt as needed to changing client requests and project needs — is often considered the gold standard for creative teams. However, it generally falls short in real-world applications. The agile model requires a layer of stability in team capacity to support it; if that’s missing, the flexibility this model tries to champion will come at the expense of high-quality work as teams spend critical time adjusting to meet client needs instead of producing the work they need to do.
The hybrid team model
Hybrid models combine elements from other structures to build a team best suited for an organization’s unique needs, and it became popular post-pandemic. As the type of work teams produce and how they do it have changed with more remote-based structures and increasing integration of AI tools, this highly customized structure has been a go-to for companies working to manage people across teams and time zones.
So, what’s missing?
Our research builds on broader industry findings, suggesting creative teams consistently struggle with burnout, stress, and a sense of underappreciation. According to a survey by Workforce, nearly two-thirds of US employees have experienced burnout at some point, with 67% reporting that it worsened during the pandemic. To put it simply, these team structures — or at least the way they’re being implemented — aren’t cutting it.
Stoke’s research report set out to address these problems. Along with several key findings — like how to deepen your talent pool and why future-focused project plans are more suited to success — we discovered that integrating agency partners into organizations looking for amplified creative collaboration can help teams do more work and do it better.
How agency partners are vital extensions to creative teams
One of the best ways to ensure the structure you choose for your team can help deliver on your organization’s most important objectives is to view agency partnerships as extensions of your in-house teams. As our report notes:
- With the vast majority of creative teams leaning on external partnerships to outsource at least a portion of their workload, augmenting internal capacities with specialized external expertise is becoming increasingly the norm.
- That said, this trend is about more than just offloading tasks. Instead, it represents a paradigm shift toward viewing agencies as vital extensions of the internal team. By outsourcing functions such as design (41%), video editing and motion graphics (35%), and writing (24%), creative leaders signal recognition of areas where internal resources might get an outside boost to enhance productivity and innovation.
But the goal is more than just outsourcing tasks to well-trained experts — it is to integrate agencies into in-house teams as natural extensions of an organization. This approach is less about competition and more about identifying skill gaps and fostering a partnership that’s aligned with your goals. Ultimately, it delivers more flexibility, as the lines between internal and external teams blur in service to shared creative objectives.
Why team structure matters more than you think
The Workforce survey found that two-thirds of respondents experienced worsening burnout since 2020. Creative professionals, who often face tight deadlines and high expectations, are particularly vulnerable. Another study conducted by the Mental Health First Aid Association found that 61% of workers feel exhausted at the end of most working days, highlighting the intense pressure within many creative environments.
Team structure directly impacts factors that affect burnout and work satisfaction, from helping distribute workload to ensuring team members can leverage the true breadth of their creative abilities across projects. That’s why it’s so critical to get it right.
Implementing a team structure that’s better suited to workload levels and strategically partnering with outside agencies to supplement skill gaps is imperative. Doing so ensures organizations deliver on their most important goals without sacrificing the drive and satisfaction of the people who make it happen.
A 2025 that hits the mark
As we move into 2025, we’re taking notes from the creative leaders we spoke to in our research and evaluating how we’re supporting our teams in doing what they do best: telling human-centric stories and delivering innovative, creative solutions to our partners’ biggest challenges.
Download the full research report to review all of our findings, including how to structure teams in ways that align with your business objectives, insights into creative collaboration across teams, and practical ways to integrate AI and other technology to improve your operations. Together, these insights can help you refine your team structures to hit target goals, reduce burnout, and support more productive creative output.
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