Traditional project management is borne of the IT and manufacturing worlds, where monitoring resources and personnel hours are the key to success. But what happens when you apply project management techniques to the creative world of ad agencies and marketing firms, where the product is images and ideas?
Creative folks tend to approach things differently, to think with the right sides of their brains. So for best results, project managers should embrace right-brained thinking too.
Effective process for creatives
This sage advice comes from Catherine McIntyre-Velky, principle at Adept Creative Project Management, and Director of Operations at Go East Design in St Paul, MN. Her agency works with some of the biggest ad agencies in the game – Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Fallon Worldwide, Arnold Agency, Weiden+Kennedy, to name a few – and helps them understand how to build effective process in the creative environment.
It’s a whole different ballgame here. You’re dealing in inspiration and ideas, and that’s something that’s hard to marry to a deadline. As Catherine notes,
Designers, copywriters, and creative directors will nod and smile knowingly when they read that, but ad execs and agency owners will mumble and curse the creative gods. After all, at some point the rubber has to meet the road, and you need to deliver a product to the client.
So how do you project manage the seemingly un-project manageable?
Good Creative Requires Collaboration
In the manufacturing and IT world, a project is much easier to quantify. Your resources, your hours, and what you need to do to get from point A to B is relatively well-defined. Thus, project management in this world requires a task-manager approach.
PMing the creative types requires a different approach. This is more a mix of coaching, complimenting, and in some cases, plain old coercion.
To do it effectively, Catherine believes you must start by defining the ultimate business goal of the project. Is it a branding campaign, or a one-medium project with a short shelf-life?
Scope is extremely important. The bigger the project, the more collaboration you’ll need, as collaboration is the key to extremely good creative.
It can also be the clog. Any creative will tell you that opinions about creative work are like fingerprints: Everyone has one, and they all are different.
These divergent opinions are what make a project great, and it’s up to you to manage them all. You have to help the team navigate, and bring everyone together at the right time. “It’s not about writing dates down on a paper,” she said. “You need to herd those cats and be emotionally invested in the project.”
Get Stra-Tactical
Managing the collaboration in a creative agency could be likened to coaching a basketball team. You must find a way to get a group of diverse talents to come together and work as a team. Instead of putting a ball in the hoop, however, you’re producing a breakthrough idea.
Either way, people score when they’re in their comfort zone. Catherine wouldn’t want a world-renowned creative director or a highly-paid copywriter worrying about filling in forms, routing materials or other such PM-oriented details. “We want to give them as much creative time as possible,” she said.
In this environment, a PM becomes what Catherine calls “stra-tactical.” This is a nuanced blend of strategy and tactics that you’ll use to get things done. “A wall can’t stop you,” she explained. “It’s up to you to find out how to tip over the wall, or climb over it. You have to have that kind of mindset.”
You’ll also be involved with a fair amount of deal-making. Catherine often negotiates with the team to get what she needs, when she needs it. “I tell them if they can just punch through this job quickly, I’ll make sure the next project they get is the big juicy one everyone is hoping for.”
If you think that sounds an awful lot like a bribe, you’re right. Using these tactics will depend entirely on the audience, as different members of the team respond to different prompts.
- A creative director will want to know you’re doing everything you can to help the team perform at their best.
- An ad exec will want to know that you will work with them, even if they’re arriving at the midnight hour with a project.
- A copywriter or a designer will want – well, something to eat. Catherine recalls promising a copywriter a six-pack of craft beer, and getting results.
In any case, empathy is paramount. If you’re doing your job well, you’re going to be working with virtually everyone in the agency. “You have to know what their weak spots are, or their boiling points,” Catherine said. “You have to speak the currency of the individual.”
What is the Ideal PM for the Creative World?
Working at a creative agency isn’t the right fit for every project manager. It requires a sense of selflessness, and an underlying desire to see a job done well. You have to be happy with a behind-the-scenes job. Move mountains, but keep it under the radar.
It also requires less rigidity than you’d see in the IT or manufacturing world. With these organic solutions, you simply can’t predict the problems you’re going to encounter. Either you roll with it, or it will roll over you.
You must be an excellent communicator; supremely organized; intuitive; and have a high “EQ” or emotional understanding. “So many soft skills take precedence,” Catherine said. “It’s not a job for everyone.”
You also have to be committed to managing the project yourself, and not count on the latest and greatest project management software to do it for you. “The technologies that exist are awesome,” she said. “But they are only tools.”
As a consultant to creative agencies, Catherine is repeatedly asked about project management tools. She’s worked with Basecamp, Social Bridge, Workamijig, and other proprietary models. She next plans to take a look at SmartSheet.
“You want something that’s nimble and quick,” she said. “The trick is to keep it simple.” As is the case with all the other requirements for a creative project manager, you really don’t have time to analyze all the bells and whistles on a piece of software.
Regardless of which tool you choose, know that project managing the right-brained workforce is no easy task. This is a world that’s more subjective, that prefers the qualitative to the quantitative. You’re forced to rely more on your wits, and to coach rather than command.
If we had to sum up the best way to project manage the right brain world? You guessed it: Get creative.
Catherine McIntyre-Velky, a principal at Adept Creative Project Management and the Director of Operations at Go East Design in St. Paul, MN. Find out more about ADEPT and their workshops at adeptcpm.com.