Who is the client?
Woo manages the development, marketing, and growth of WooCommerce—the world’s leading open-source eCommerce platform. They are a division of Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Pocket Casts to name a few. WooCommerce powers millions of online stores globally and supports a distributed marketing, design, and engineering workforce focused on enabling merchants of all sizes to succeed online.
What did they need help with?
Following a company-wide mandate to adopt Linear across all teams, WooCommerce’s Creative and Brand team faced friction in replacing their current Trello-based project management system. Linear—while powerful for engineering workflows—lacked key marketing-friendly features such as visual task dependencies, forms, and calendar views. The team needed support identifying a platform that would better support their creative production needs, streamlining campaign execution, and integrating more scalable, automated workflows. They also needed guidance on ensuring collaboration with stakeholders who remained in Linear.
What was my role?
As a Creative Operations Consultant through my LLC Hawthorne Creative Agency, I was brought in to evaluate tooling, design system architecture, and implement AI-powered automations to bridge the needs of both Creative and Marketing. In this contract I:
- Evaluated 5+ project management platforms (Wrike, Asana, ClickUp, Airtable, Linear)
- Designed and deployed a Wrike → Linear sync system to ensure shared visibility across teams
- Built 10+ no-code automations using custom API calls through Make.com and Zapier to streamline intake and status updates
- Integrated AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude) into workflows and project summaries
- Created campaign templates, intake flows, naming conventions, and effort-sizing models
- Researched and recommended a Google Drive–native DAM solution for long-term asset governance
- Partnered with Marketing Ops leadership to ensure tooling aligned with organizational goals for 2025+
How did it turn out?
The engagement led to the successful rollout of Wrike Business for a 20-seat Creative team, enabling streamlined execution while preserving visibility for Marketing stakeholders still in Linear. Automations will reduce manual coordination by 60%, and AI-assisted workflows will accelerate communication and triage. The Creative team will now operate within a centralized, scalable system with built-in automation and alignment to company-wide mandates. Feedback from stakeholders was highly positive, and the team is positioned to expand this infrastructure—including DAM integration—into 2026.
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