Working Table Chicago: Fix the Handoff

Working Table Chicago: Fix the Handoff

Don’t listen to leaders talk about the problem. Sit at the table and work on it yourself

Most professional events follow the same structure:

Someone speaks.

Everyone else listens.

Networking happens afterward.

Working Table Chicago reverses that model.

Each edition brings together a small professional community around one real operating problem.

There is no keynote presentation.

There is no panel.

There is no open mixer as the main event.

Instead, attendees work in six-person groups, rotate through several problem-solving rounds, and finish the evening with a practical framework created at the tables.

For the first Chicago edition:

FIX THE HANDOFF: FROM BRIEF TO LAUNCH

The working question is:

How do agency, in-house marketing, and operations teams move work from brief to launch without losing context, ownership, or time?

Thirty-six participants from three working contexts will examine where handoffs break, redesign one of those moments, and turn the discussion into a simple operating framework.

WHO THIS EDITION IS FOR

This edition is designed for people actively working in:

AGENCY

Examples may include:

• Strategy

• Account management

• Creative operations

• Media

• Production

• Project delivery

• Agency leadership

IN-HOUSE MARKETING

Examples may include:

• Brand

• Growth marketing

• Marketing strategy

• Content

• Communications

• Campaign management

• Creative teams

OPERATIONS

Examples may include:

• Marketing operations

• Project management

• Program management

• Production operations

• Workflow design

• Resource management

• Process improvement

Your title does not need to match one exact label.

Choose the lane that best reflects the work you are currently doing.

THE WORKING PROBLEM

A campaign or project may look simple from the outside:

brief → make → review → approve → launch

But real work rarely moves that cleanly.

Context gets lost.

Ownership changes.

Approvals appear late.

Teams build before decisions are clear.

Operations teams inherit a process after the process is already broken.

This edition asks the room to examine those handoffs directly.

HOW THE EVENING WORKS

Attendees work in approximately six tables of six people.

Each round has a different purpose.

ROUND 1 - WHERE IT BREAKS

The first table identifies friction inside the current workflow.

The group maps:

Brief → Decision → Production → Review → Approval → Launch

The table identifies:

• Where context is usually lost

• Where ownership becomes unclear

• Which information arrives too late

• Which decisions are repeatedly reopened

• Where work waits unnecessarily

Each table chooses two friction points to carry forward.

ROUND 2 - REBUILD THE HANDOFF

Participants rotate.

The next table receives a working friction point and redesigns the handoff around five questions:

Who owns it?

What input is required?

What decision must happen?

What output moves forward?

When should the issue be escalated?

The purpose is not to design a perfect universal process.

It is to make the handoff specific enough to use.

ROUND 3 - MAKE IT USABLE

The final tables combine agency, in-house, and operations perspectives.

Each table turns its discussion into a simple:

HANDOFF OPERATING MAP

The framework contains five fields:

Stage

Owner

Required Input

Decision

Done Means

The objective is a practical framework rather than a list of observations.

THE OUTPUT

Every working table completes one Handoff Operating Map during the event.

The map is a workshop output created through the group exercise.

It is intended as a practical starting framework that attendees may adapt to their own work.

It is not presented as a universal operating standard or professional consulting recommendation."