Project Management for Creative Projects

Learn to use project management best practices to balance the goals, schedule, team members, and clients involved in a creative endeavor.

Project management is key to getting any idea from start to finish, but creative projects face special challenges that set them apart from traditional business projects. In this course, Rich Harrington introduces the core concepts of effective project management as it relates to work in video production, design, photography, or any other creative endeavor. Learn how to describe the services you offer, properly scope your project, identify major deliverables and interdependencies, and communicate with clients at all stages of the process. Rich shares insights from his many years as a business owner and creative professional, bringing together full-time employees, contractors, and freelancers to plan and execute high-level creative projects that keep clients happy.

This course was created by Rhed Pixel. We are pleased to offer this training in our library.

Introduction

• How do you manage creative projects?
• What you should know before watching this course

1. The Whats and Whys of Project Management

• The benefits of project management
• When not to use project management
• Reviewing the golden rules of effective project management
• What is the Project Management Institute (PMI)?

2. Understanding Services Offered

• Understanding your internal capabilities
• Outsourcing
• Partnering

3. Project Management Core Concepts

• Project management bottom line
• Understanding the triple constraint
• Defining the objectives of a project
• Defining the characteristics of a project
• The standard life cycle of a project
• Using project management effectively
• A typical life cycle for a creative project

4. Scoping a Creative Project

• Scoping the project
• Giving the project a descriptive and unique name
• Creating an executive summary
• Refining the scope
• Identifying key roles for a project
• Building the scoping document
• The importance of sign-off
• Creating a technical brief

5. Estimating Time

• Using historical data
• Using a time estimation formula
• Getting a peer review for time estimation
• Getting an external review for time estimation
• When to pad the budget
• The work breakdown structure

6. Client Communication

• Using in-progress reports to communicate with clients
• What information can you share with your client?
• Using online project management tools
• Understanding the core features needed for online systems
• Managing a project with Basecamp
• Managing a project with Facebook
• Communicating with Slack
• Collaborating with Google Docs and Sheets

7. Project Control Cycle

• What is a control cycle?
• Building a control cycle
• Balancing control with speed
• Enforcing the control cycle

8. Managing Employees and Contractors

• Time tracking
• Recruiting contractors
• Managing contractors
• When to hire staff
• Understanding the independent contractor status
• Working with an accountant

9. Effective Teams

• Reviewing the elements of a successful team startup
• Outlining effective team membership
• Warning signs of a failing team
• Corrective actions for teams
• Encourage leadership amongst the team
• Fostering team accountability

10. Keeping Clients Happy

• Fostering open and frequent communication
• Performing a client debrief
• Being seen as a resource to your clients
• Surveying clients

11. Closing Out the Project

• When is a project done?
• Reconciling change orders
• Reconciling billing
• The project debrief
• Capturing lessons learned
• Archiving the project

Conclusion

• Goodbye and suggested learning