When thinking of project management, often times it elicits visions of more serious and “business-y” tasks and projects that are being planned and managed. I decided to research and try to find teaching and best practices when managing the creative process, such as at an ad agency. Anyone who has spent time around creative people knows that sometimes getting everyone on a single task is like herding cats.
This article, “Managing the Creative Process and Integrated Project Management”, is by the creative director of an ad agency and I will post the link to the full article below. He says he has worked at agencies of all sizes, and that while smaller agencies tend to have less formal project management practices, larger agencies tend to need them to keep everyone on mission. Here are some of the highlights for me from the article:
- “Resource management is more than just watching hours”
- In this bullet point, the author describes the process of bringing together all the different people you will need to accomplish the mission. In both the business and creative process (and especially when the two combine), different people have different skill sets and personalities. It is important for the project manager to take this all into account when assembling the team. Also, constantly analyzing what skills the team is lacking and what skills can be let go is important too.
- “Keep the end goal in mind”
- It is important that everyone in the project focus on the final goal, not just their immediate task at hand. The creative process cannot be broken down like an assembly line. This keeps everyone’s minds free to improvise and explore new and interesting ways to complete their tasks that benefit the end goal. Giving your employees freedom within the framework of the project can be extremely rewarding. Project managers must have the big picture in mind at all times, in order to make sure every task is flowing toward the end goal.
- “Support the three P’s: people, process, philosophy (culture)”
- Stress and anger are incredibly counter productive to the creative process. It is contingent on the project manager, and on the organization as a whole, to create an environment that is as stress-free as possible to keep creative juices flowing. Now while no project will go 100% as planned, and there are bound to be challenges, processes need to be in place to deal with the challenges as easily as possible. Having strong processes and a strong company culture in place will alleviate stress brought on by problems.
Article: http://adsubculture.com/articles/2013/9/30/managing-the-creative-process-and-integrated-project-management
Great article, thanks for sharing Josh! The last highlight on the three P’s strikes home. I recently filled in as PM for a coworker on maternity leave and the biggest challenge I encountered was dealing with team dynamics, environment, and stress. If you let stress get to you as a PM it introduces tension into the project and begins affecting other team members. Stepping into a temporary PM role on top of being a new employee, I also battled with some other worries including: Can I get everyone on board with the project? Are we on track to meet preexisting deadlines set by management? Am I fulfilling duties as well as the previous PM?
The article from Forbes below sums up a few other tactics that seem simple but I think we often forget these in fast-paced corporate life. I plan on applying these in my day-to-day routine and keeping the three P’s at the front of my mind.
Bradberry, T. (2014). How successful people stay calm. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/02/06/how-successful-people-stay-calm/
This is an interesting topic Josh. I think that from a high level view, the melding of a “creative” end product with “business-y” objectives is nothing short of daunting. Most of the obstacles will be overcome early in the process while you are defining the projects scope. You are right on money with you comment about change management processes. They are “playground” rules that will keep a team cohesive.
I am admittedly not a creative person. Having worked with some of these personality types, I have formed my own opinions of how to herd the proverbial “cats”. However, the herding is more akin to leading than pushing. From my experience, creative types don’t like to be boxed in. This is almost automatically in direct opposition to the three classic constraints of project management (time, cost, and performance).
Contrary to your posting, I believe that the answer to overcoming the contrarian nature of this problem is to absolutely break the process down into an “assembly line” of tasks and sub-tasks. It is really the only way to move forward, and leave the previously covered ground behind you. I have found that the key ingredient is the recognition of the fact that the creative personalities will generally sell themselves on an idea when asked questions like “how?” and “why”.
Example; why will we do it that way? How will we accomplish that?
It is generally the reality of “when” that creates tension. This can be addressed by asking the “what” questions.
Example; what are the customer’s expectations? What has to happen for us to make this a reality?
Which natural brings us to the “who” questions.
Example; who is going to own this? Who do you need you to help with this?
So again, in my humble opinion, this is still an organized series of milestones with owners and due dates.
Thanks for posting this article, it’s an interesting topic. Reading your post reminded me of some of the issues we have encountered at my company, which is a large retail business. I find the creative individuals and project managers are often at odds with each other because of these issues laid out above. We are in the processes of changing our enterprise level content management system, and so the three P’s are often overlooked or forgotten.
Unfortunately, our process is still being formed, so there is little solid documentation for us to fall back on to ensure we are following the “process.” But hopefully in the coming months we will have the process fully flushed out which will help us focus on shoring up our culture and empowering our people.
Empowerment is something we are still working on developing and I think that goes hand-in-hand with item two “keeping the goal in mind.” When individuals are empowered they are more likely to feel free to explore new creative techniques while also owning the goal of the project.
Yes, managing the creative process is certainly not something we, as business-minded folks, consider often. Though it may share similar veins, it is obviously a different speed. In a business type project, something like culture may take a back seat to timeliness and task completion. The company that employs me is a manufacturing firm. It was started in the 1940s, developed into something else in the 1970s, and is going through another “development” stage. Though the previous change was brought upon naturally (someone saw a need for the current customer base and grew something out of it), this change is being brought upon unnaturally. The company is not only forcing a change, but it has already given sales goals for that “next new thing”. To develop this new business, we have put together an entire team dedicated to this purpose. So, though they are not being creative in the sense that they are writing a script or putting together advertisements, they are being creative in a business sense (introducing ideas and vetting them). Unfortunately, they are not adhering to the article you referred to above because they are providing targets and timelines that may stifle these creative juices. I agree they they should dedicate a team to this with an end goal, but not focus on timelines and targets in fear that this will change the direction of the group. There is some middle ground between natural and unnatural development where we can develop a team, but also allow the creative project management process to take hold.
Thank you for a very interesting topic. The topics that you highlighted are very critical to a project’s success. I believe keeping the end goal in mind is a must. I have personally worked for PMs who have given me more freedom to accomplish my tasks by capitalizing on resources that I have created within our organization rather than following a specified process. This certainly has helped me get the job done faster and better.
I got my undergrad degree in painting at Illinois State University before I went on to pursue a masters in business. In my undergrad years, I spent a lot of time around ‘creative’ people. Oddly enough the art building was right next to the school of business and I remember thinking daily, how boring it must be to go into business. Now that I am in business school, I look back at art school and wonder how we ever got anything done. BUT WE DID GET THINGS DONE. We would facilitate our own art openings, drawing crowds of hundreds of people. Most of my classmates were well educated and traveled. If we were doing a large installation, we had to cordinate materials, publicize the show, and meet the deadline of the show opening.
We also did not follow any particular schedule, had loosely structured project plans, and were emotional decision makers.
I believe we were successful because it was not a matter of ‘reigning in the cats’ but everyone was encouraged to run free with their ideas. To the project manager this may seem like a nightmare but I think it worked because we had a vision and it was an environment where everyone encouraged each other to push out of the ordinary. I think a successful project manager of creative talent needs to not limit the ideas or set too many boundaries but communicate a common goal like the article suggests.