Projects large and small often go one of two ways when served up to the creative team by account folk:

• “When do you think you could have this by?”
• We need this no later than XX/XX/XXXX.

As to the first, it seems an innocent enough question. Almost respectful, even, given that who knows your schedule and output abilities better than you? But, sometimes, it feels more like the gauntlet is being thrown down and what the person is really saying is: “surprise and amaze me with how quickly you can drop everything else you are doing and get this done.” Especially when you are blind-sided with the question, only moments after being shown the brief (assuming there is such an animal), and the person is hovering waiting for you make a potentially bad decision on the fly.
At the very least, buy yourself some time. Resist the urge to commit to anything other than: “I’ll have a think and get back to you shortly.” The other option is to put the question back to the account person: “When do you need it by?” In nearly every case, they will have a date in mind even if they didn’t offer it up in the beginning.
Just as bad as the creative person who always says “no” or “not possible,” is the creative who always says “yes” to even the most unreasonable or impossible request. Pull a rabbit out of your hat too often, or even when it’s not really needed, and you will have trained your account team to give little thought as to what is a decent amount of time for a job to be done and done well.
Once in awhile, it’s good to do the seemingly impossible, or at least improbable, you will win friends and be more credible down the road if you need to tell someone you are being presented with an unreasonable task.
I didn’t invent this phrase, but I use it often: “The impossible we can do straight away, but miracles take a little longer.”
This POV brought to you by a member of Boom Ideanet, the creative department of the future.” (Link: http://boomideanet.com/)

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Part 4 of a 4-part series on Project Management by contributor Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
Implementing project management in the creative industry comes with a set of unique challenges. More so if you have never had a dedicated project management function in your team and if your Creatives are used to running projects their own way. While alleviating stress, chaos, and disorganization, sounds like a no-brainer, people tend to find change—even if it’s positive—more stressful than dealing with the pain they have grown accustomed to. So, implementing new processes and tools, and introducing new roles to the dynamics of your team can face major resistance. Creatives tend not to embrace linear processes and confining operations. So, the last thing you want your creative talent to think is that you are trying to turn your studio into some kind of manufacturing production line by implementing project management.
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Sell the benefit of project management to the Creatives
Marketing the project management team to your creative talent is absolutely crucial to ensure that the whole team embraces the new function. You have to highlight the benefit of project management to your team. For example, you could say:

• The new project management software will organize your day and you can see immediately which tasks to complete first
• You don’t have to look for production files anymore, everything will be stored in an organized fashion in the new system
• Your project manager will handle scheduling and remind you if you are falling behind.
• If you are having issues with clients not defining the scope, your project manager will facilitate discussion and help you figure out the exact deliverables.

Answering the “What’s in it for me?” questions from the creative team will ease the transition, ultimately setting the right scene for your new project managers to succeed.
Empowering project managers
When thinking about the reporting structure for project managers, there are different school of thoughts. Some organizations will have project managers reporting up to the operations head (or senior project manager) or studio manager. Others have project managers reporting to the creative director. The advantage of separating the reporting line of project managers with content producers is drawing a clear line between production and control, hence ensuring better accountability. But again, if structured well, project managers can report to the creative director and assist in effective resource management. So, there’s really no one-size-fits-all solution.
Never underestimate the importance of empowering the project managers. Explain to the team and the clients what the role and responsibilities of the project managers are, so they can demonstrate proper authority. This method should work even if your project managers are relatively junior in working experience or title. Your role as a creative leader is to set the scene to allow project managers to take a lead in scheduling discussions and engaging with clients.
From project management to operations management
Once your team has learned to understand the basics of project management, you can take it to the next level by normalizing the business practices using operations management principles.
If your agency’s projects consist of highly templated, repetitive, and routine production work, you can manage these projects by setting factory line-like processes. This way, you can minimize the monitoring and controlling efforts on these projects and allocate your resources to those projects which are new and experimental and/or require complex stakeholder engagement. Grouping projects into different types and setting rules and procedures to handle each type of project helps your team focus their energy in the right places . Some teams use a project tiering system, others might set up a transactions desk to handle simple, repetitive, and fast-turnaround projects.
Many of the project management systems discussed in the previous post would certainly support your effort in implementing operations management to run an effective team. However, to get to the operations management stage, you will need to conduct thorough business analysis of your processes and procedures—a task you can assign to project managers who will be experts in your team’s business processes.
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Good luck with implementing project management in your team! It may be a time consuming, painful process but it will definitely pay off in the long run.
About the author: Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
Annika works as Media Officer at the International Monetary Fund, in a project management team of an in-house agency with 40 + staff providing design, photography and video production services. Her previously held positions include TV reporter, PR manager and UN Communications Officer.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management

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Part 3 of a 4-part series on Project Management by contributor Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
Find or grow?
So, now that you are convinced of the benefits of project management in your team, you may wonder where to begin. While there are many project management tools out there, there is no technical solution to replace the human interaction needed to manage your clients and projects. So, the very first thing you need to think about is establishing project manager roles in your team. And most probably, you will be faced with two choices— recruit new project managers or train/assign existing staff to work as project managers.
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Hiring project mangers
The benefit of hiring project managers from the outside is that you will instantaneously gain someone who is trained and experienced. An ideal candidate will be someone who has subject matter expertise in the creative industry gained in an agency or in-house team, is familiar with project management software, and has solid communication, scheduling, and estimating skills. Other qualities to look for are organizational skills, logical thinking, and the ability to work under pressure.
At a recent project manager event, I participated in behavior assessments. The test was based on DiSC methodology which centers on four different personality traits: Direct, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. Guess which category 80% of the room fell into? Dominance (direct, strong willed, and forceful) and Influence (sociable, talkative, and lively). This probably shows that determined extroverts are more suited for project manager roles than those who are introverted.
Unlike recruiting designers and photographers where you can see their portfolios, assessing project managers’ skills can be a challenging task. You can check references, but if you want to go the extra mile, challenge your candidates with case studies. For example, give the candidate mock scenarios to see how they would handle negotiating scheduling, delivering bad news to a client, meeting a tight deadline, etc. Alternatively, you can look for candidates who are certified. Project Management Institute offers robust certification programs starting from Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), to Project Management/Program Management Professional (PMP/PgMP). These project management certifications are not directly geared toward the creative industry, but they are widely recognized globally across different industries. Candidates with these certifications have gone through professional training and demonstrated technical understanding of basic project management principles. However, this can be a bit pricy. A certified Project Management Professional’s average salary was $110,000 USD in 2013, so if this is within your budget, hiring a PMP to lead your project management team could be an excellent option.
Training your existing team
Another option which could be cheaper and easier to gain management approval (Adding a headcount is always a hassle, isn’t it?) is to train a team member who is currently working in another capacity. I have heard of teams who have trained receptionists or customer representatives to become project managers with great success. In other instances, designers and other content specialists who are interested in growing their careers in more operational/business roles can be trained into project managers. You may also be able to find an experienced project manager in other departments such as IT to transfer to your team.
Sourcing project managers internally can be advantageous because your team knows your business process and clients well. Also, you avoid the risks involved bringing an external candidate into a new function, where clashes with the existing team and culture are possible. If you have a training budget, you can send your future project managers to crash courses or have them set a goal to be certified. There are many training institutes that offer online training as well as group training at your organization.
Deploying technology—useful project management tools
Once you have the right people in place, the next item to consider is which project manager tool to use to reduce manual input.
A good project management suite should take in requests from clients, map resources, create project schedules, store project information in one place, and possibly offer a platform for collaboration. Other fancy features offered are invoicing, cost planning, and online approval tools.
Up until a few years ago, many creative teams had no options but to use Filemaker or Excel to aid project management. Today, many companies are offering tailor-made project management and collaboration tools for the creative industry. Just Google “creative project management software” and you should find a dozen products in the market. The prices vary depending on the packages or number of licenses you purchase. Note that on top of the costs for the software, there is quite a bit of manpower required to implement a solution. It helps to talk to other users and read write-ups on project management tools to learn more about the pros and cons of each product.
The key here is to know what you wish to achieve through the tool. Is it for collaboration, to introduce digital proofing, or simply to track project progress? Do you need a workflow tool, or simply a place to track and report time and expenses. Ask these questions to your team and clients before bringing in a new system.
You should also appoint a champion on your project management team to lead the system implementation and maintenance. If you are lucky enough to have a robust IT team to support the tool, you may be able to get away with having a liaison appointed internally in your team and have your IT department do the heavy lifting during implementation. Alternatively, you might be able to use your IT department to develop a custom solution.
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Once you have a team of project managers and set of tools to use, you should be all set to deal with your next challenge—change management!
Coming up next on March 17th: Part 4 – Change management: marrying the left and right brain successfully

About the author: Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
Annika works as Media Officer at the International Monetary Fund, in a project management team of an in-house agency with 40 + staff providing design, photography and video production services. Her previously held positions include TV reporter, PR manager and UN Communications Officer.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management

The post Project Management Pt. 3 – Implementing project management in your team— tools and resources appeared first on UpSource.

Part 2 of a 4-part series on Project Management by contributor Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
What is project management?
Project management arose from architecture, building engineering, and the construction industry. You can imagine some kind of planning, estimating, and milestone management took place when building something like the Pyramids. However, the application of project management methodologies to areas beyond architecture and engineering is a more recent phenomenon. According to the Project Management Institute, there are 51 million people around the world working in the area of project management today and an estimated 15.7 million new project management jobs will be created globally by 2020. This demonstrates how organizations across the board— including those in the creative arena—are recognizing the tremendous value project management brings to the business.
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The textbook definition of a project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” Project management is defined as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet the project requirements.” Although it sounds dry and rather complex, project management technique can be implemented as easy as following the five steps below.
Note: If you do not have a project manager on your team, appoint someone to be the coordinator/traffic manager for each project. If you have a client relations manager or customer service representative, these positions can become hybrid project manager roles too. Avoid asking your content producer (writer, designer, videographer) to project manage his/her own project, as it defeats the purpose of implementing control over the three key aspects of projects: scope, cost, and time.
Step1: The client brief is the key
Understanding what the client wishes to achieve through the specific projects you are about to undertake is of critical importance. In the world of business analysis, this action is called “requirements gathering” and it should not be taken lightly. In the creative industry, you often use a creative brief. This is a document to explain the vision of the project and officially kick-start a project. If you use a creative brief, treat it as a written agreement between the creative team and your client on critical items such as project objective, deliverables, and timelines.
In your initial discussion with the client, your project manager should be asking the right questions to fully understand what your client is asking for.

• What is the objective of the project?
• What are the deliverables you have in mind?
• When is your deadline?
• Who are the people involved in this project?
• Who needs to approve the project?
• What is the budget?

Remember that this phase provides the opportunity to right-size the amount of work to meet the clients’ objectives. Poor requirements gathering and unclear setting of expectations is, by far, the number-one cause of project failure (Infotech’s research suggests 70% of projects fail because of flawed requirements). Your project managers are there to ensure a good start, securing a good ending.
Step 2: Scheduling
Once you have determined the deliverables, break down what it takes to create the deliverables: How many activities are involved? How many people should be assigned? How long will each activity take? When should the client review the work? Work your way back from the desired delivery date and draw up a preliminary schedule for the project. If you realize the project cannot be delivered in the timeframe your client asked for, you can add more resources to some activities to speed up the process, or negotiate to push out the delivery date.
There are many scheduling tools you can use to make this process as painless as possible. Most project management tools come with templates you can easily adapt to your needs.
After setting the initial schedule comes the task of monitoring project progress and adjusting the schedule as the project progresses. All project schedules should be monitored on a daily basis. If things are not progressing as planned, the project manager should revise the schedule and alert the key stakeholders. Once project managers are used to this task, they should be able to detect the early warning signs of schedule deviation and take corrective measures before the projects become derailed.
Step 3: Budgeting
Whether you are in a charge-back environment or not, estimating resources (labor) and other costs to accomplish the project is a critical step to keep your clients happy as well as to keep your team (business) viable. Budget is closely linked with scheduling as well as scope. Project managers can use the preliminary schedule to price out the project’s labor cost and add the cost up as revisions take place during the course of the project. If labor or materials are required from outside vendors, the project manager has to communicate the estimates with the clients and keep track of all the critical information centrally. For design projects involving print buying, the project manager can also wear the hat of print coordinator, initiating requests for print quotes and scheduling press times.
Step 4: Managing change orders
Managing change orders initiated by both clients and internal stakeholders is probably a project manager’s most difficult task, requiring expert negotiation and relationship management skills. If you work in a large organization where your direct client contact does not necessarily possess the authority to sign-off on project delivery, managing clients’ change orders may become even more challenging. For example, your team may be working on a branding project, everything is running smoothly, and you are getting close to finalizing the logo. Then the client comes back, all of a sudden, saying that she shared the design with her vice president and he wants a redesign. What should your project manager do? Say no, or yes? Revise the schedule, and costs and present the client with new delivery dates? Or, should your project manager have ensured all key stakeholders were involved earlier on in the project to avoid last minute change orders? There is no right answer to these questions as it depends on your organizational culture, however, the presence of project management in your operation will surely reduce the risks involved in change orders.
Step 5: 20/80 rule—spend 80% of time communicating
Many studies suggest for project managers to be truly successful, 20% of project managers’ time should be spent on transactional activities to control the project (monitoring schedules, organizing files, writing requirements, etc.) and 80% of the time should be spent on communicating. Project managers should be updating the clients with project progress, asking questions, keeping the project team informed of upcoming deadlines—on a continuous basis. Effective project managers understand what type of information should be shared when, and know how to communicate with each stakeholder in the project. Emails and system-generated notifications are convenient, but, never underestimate the importance of face-to-face communication.
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After reading all this you might be wondering if there are any quick and easy ways to implement project management in your team. In the next post, I will introduce some useful toolkits for creative project management.
Coming up next on March 10th: Part 3 – Implementing project management in your team— tools and resources
About the author: Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
Annika works as Media Officer at the International Monetary Fund, in a project management team of an in-house agency with 40 + staff providing design, photography and video production services. Her previously held positions include TV reporter, PR manager and UN Communications Officer.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management

The post Project Management Pt. 2 – Tips and tricks: Five easy steps to implementing project management appeared first on UpSource.

Part 1 of a 4-part series on Project Management by contributor Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
By Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
A few years ago, I was working at one of the UN agencies based in Rome, in what can be described as a typical in-house creative agency. The team consisted of a creative director, chief copywriter (who was also my mentor), senior designer, contract designer, social media/distribution specialists and a bunch of others including a writer, editor, production coordinator, video/photo shooter and strategist.
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Soon after I started working, I was assigned a recurring, multi-lingual publication project, managed by the chief copywriter. He seemed to have nailed down a functioning production management system. After explaining how it worked, he confessed that he could use some new ideas because “we always miss the print date and designers mess up the files.” So, I quickly drafted a Gantt-chart style schedule using Excel and set up a file sharing system in Drop-box for external designers and translators to access the production files.
When I showed him how the schedule and file sharing system worked, he looked at me with amazement and said “Wow, I never thought of using Excel to draw up a schedule. Where did you learn this?”
To answer his question, I should have said, “That’s the problem! We, in the creative industry, are never taught how to properly manage projects, so we waste too much energy and time working in chaos.”
Frankly, when I went to business school almost 10 years ago, project management was not a mandatory subject. So, I acquired these skills learning from experienced colleagues on the job.
Why managing a triangle of constraints matter
As creative leaders, all of you have experienced pains caused by disorganization of projects. We are hired to be creative and think outside the box, so getting organized is probably not high on our priority list. However, our world is also bound by business rules, such as time, cost, and client-satisfaction rates. Whether you are in an agency environment or in-house, as long as you are making money from selling your services, you will be subject to the triangle of constraint; time, cost, and scope. Does missed deadlines, cost overruns, dissatisfied clients, excessive number of revisions, and late nights and weekends sound familiar?
If so, let’s think about this—these issues are not only destructive to your team’s work-life balance, but also critical to your business’s value proposition. If you are in a charge-back environment, the triangle is the key to your team’s survival as it is what your performance will be measured against. Even if you are subsidized or centrally funded, if you are not managing your resources, tracking your time, or delivering what clients ask for, you will probably not receive executive support the next time you need to increase your headcount. In short, project management is the science of balancing scope, time and cost. It is not an optional methodology—it is a must in today’s world.
What project management can offer
Here’s a question to ask yourself: Did you hire your designer to worry about missing client deadlines or to dig up multiple emails to confirm what the specs were? Now, imagine if you had a dedicated team of project managers whose sole responsibility was to gather requirements, draw up preliminary schedules, remind designers of upcoming deadlines, label production files in an organized fashion, and follow up with clients? With project management, projects will run seamlessly and your designers can actually focus on what they are good at.
Risk management is another reason why project management is relevant to the creative industry. According to industry studies, by IAG consulting in 2009 and by US Government Accountability Office in 2008, around 50 – 70% of IT projects surveyed did not succeed for various reasons such as poor project planning and management. And these IT projects are generally carried out by qualified project managers and technical specialists—the number crunchers. If the chance of failure is that high in the IT industry, what’s the chance of project failure in the creative industry when projects are managed by artists? I doubt many of your creative talent care to be experts in estimating time and costs and love quantitatively tracking project progress. Well, there we are.
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So, if your team is tired of living in the creative chaos, and wants to please the clients and save money and time, project management is the way to go!
Coming up next on March 3rd: Part 2 – Tips and tricks: Five easy steps to implementing project management.
About the author: Annika Vaughan, MBA, PMP
Annika works as Media Officer at the International Monetary Fund, in a project management team of an in-house agency with 40 + staff providing design, photography and video production services. Her previously held positions include TV reporter, PR manager and UN Communications Officer.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management

The post Project Management Pt. 1 – What is Project Management and Why Should it Matter to Creatives? appeared first on UpSource.

If you are like pretty much every other creative leader on the planet, you are being asked (told) to do more with fewer (human) resources. While this poses a number of challenges, there are several things you can do to help keep your team and yourself somewhat sane.
Many in-house teams do not charge back for their services, meaning 25 rounds later the client is still making edits. We’ve all been there and often these countless rounds of revisions can stem from poor communication and project planning upfront.
The best tactic is also the most basic. Talk to each other and to your clients at the kick off of each project. Every project, big or small, should come with a very clear set of expectations around timing, scope, objectives and success. Not having that discussion before a project kicks off practically ensures that you’ll have rework. And rework is the lean creative team’s biggest and foulest enemy.
With the necessary information up front, you’ll be able to direct the project to members of the team who can handle it most efficiently. I’ve found that creating a team that blends senior and developing talent – some performers who think and act strategically with others who focus on tactics and implementation – is another way to increase your overall efficiency and effectiveness.
In a perfect world, you’ll also have some source of on-demand talent – freelancers, contractors, or even colleagues from other teams you can pull in as needed to help with spikes in workflow.
Another option is to consider investing in a creative project management tool to help you level the load across the team, see where bottlenecks are occurring, and minimize the downtime between steps.
My final recommendation is this: To help avoid or at least plan for those spikes, hire the best project manager you possibly can. A seasoned pro can keep efficiencies at their highest, keep the energy up in the studio and save time and costs.
These POVs brought to you by an experienced member of Boom Ideanet where crowdsourcing is civilized.
 

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