Project management
The project is developed during the six weeks PM course at Talent Garden/KEA,
where I gained a deep understanding of foundational project management tools.
Software: Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Office Timeline
During this six weeks course, I studied Agile, Waterfall, and Kanban methodologies.
As part of this, I worked on essential project documents, including a stakeholder analysis, project scope statement, communication plan, and Gantt chart. Motivated by a passion for creative processes, I focused my certification exam around an advertising case.
Please scroll down for an exploration of the business case and additional insights on managing design projects.
Business Case
1. Company background
The advertising agency S Studio (fictive name) is based in Copenhagen and was founded in 2000. In its 21 years of activity, the agency grew from 4 employees to an international team of 58 people. The agency works mostly with fashion and furniture brands, has an interdisciplinary approach and offers digital solutions in the form of UX / UI, e-commerce, and digital marketing. Currently, S Studio is looking for opportunities to expand to other industries where design and digital presence are vital. According to their strategy, automotive and hospitality are two of their priorities in 2021 and the marketing and strategic departments are working to attract clients from these two industries. One of their recent clients is a Danish sustainable hotel – Amann (fictive name), that will launch in October 2021.
2. Description of the project
Amann plans to open in Copenhagen, before the Christmas season of 2021. The brand wants to target an audience that has an interest in high quality, sustainability and design. The company struggled with sales in the past 1.5 years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and has high hopes for the performance of the new sustainable location. S Studio is tasked with the responsibility of creating and developing Amann’s website and has divided this project into 5 main phases (according to the plan-driven Waterfall methodology), with iterative checkpoints after each phase (according to the Agile methodology).
3. Project Manager’s role
In this project, the project manager’s role is to identify the stakeholders, to perform a stakeholder analysis and to ensure their needs are met, to create the project scope statement, to make sure S Studio and Amann are on the same page, to develop a communication plan and to ensure a smooth collaboration with the client the whole time, to create a WBS and a Gantt Chart and to ensure deadlines are met. Moreover, the project manager is the connection between the team and the client and ensures the client sees progress on the project.
4. Project Management challenge
How can S Studio make sure it delivers a high-quality project (website design and development) within the deadline?
5. Methodologies
The project follows a Waterfall + Agile checkpoints/iterations + Kanban approach.
Waterfall allows the split of the project into phases and tasks and ensures a better experience for the client and the execution team. To ensure the project is delivered within deadline and at high quality, the Kanban methodology helps the project manager balance tasks with team capacity, ensure a good mood and motivation among the team, and have an overview of the tasks.
Having an Agile mindset keeps the focus of the project on the client and allows for iterative checkpoints and revision cycles, crucial for the goal of the project – website design and development.
The following methodologies are used:
Stakeholder analysis is used to make sure all the parts that have an interest in the project or are affected by it are included, and to understand what their needs are and how to best meet these needs.
Project Scope statement - given the complexity of the project, it is important to specify the scope, to avoid scope creep. This also lets the project manager, and the stakeholders know what is going on anytime, anywhere, and allows the project manager to understand the business goal of the project, its purpose, tasks, deliverables and milestones, delimitations, obstacles and pre-existing conditions.
Communication plan - to ensure clarity and transparency. The project needs a steady stream of communication to stay on track and to consolidate the relationship with Amann. Another reason for the communication plan is to cultivate collaboration between team members and to facilitates communication about the Kanban board(TO DO, IN PROGRESS, IN REVIEW, DONE tasks). The plan will ensure clear expectations, feedback, and alignment with the goals.
WBS + Gantt Chart – they allow team members to know their roles and responsibilities, help in setting expectations and in creating accountability by outlining tasks and deliverables. The WBS will break down the scope of the project into manageable sections for the team, while the Gantt Chart will be used to plan the tasks and visualize the project timeline. They are crucial for within deadline delivery.
6. Bibliography and sources
1. Adapt, https://adaptagency.com/
2. Talent Garden, https://talentgarden.org/en/
3. Lucidchart, https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/is-agile-waterfall-hybrid-right-for-your-team
4. The Digital Project Manager, https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/agile-manifesto/
5. The Digital Project Manager, https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/kanban-vs-scrum-key-differences/
6. The Digital Project Manager, https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/agile-project-management/
Managing Design Projects
The presentation below is based on PM in an advertising agency, follows a waterfall approach and shows actions and tips for onboarding, team assign and workflow.
The deal with the client is made, price agreement and contract are signed - what is next?
1. Onboarding 2. Assign Team 3. Workflow
1. ONBOARDING
• Goal: to discuss the payment schedule and to make sure everybody is clear & on the same page
• Actions: strategy sessions (kick-off meeting & brief review)
Kick-off meeting: goal – to strategize with the client. Considering the product or result they want, talk about different ways you can complete that. This is a discovery stage.
* In the following 1-2 weeks (before the brief review) compile notes, create the design strategy and assign the team.
Brief review (meet the client again, after the 1-2 weeks): goal – to make sure everybody is on the same page. Considering what you heard so far, this is how you interpret it into a design project. In this way, you are building up to a solution, rather than just going straight into the design, which a lot of designers want to do. The brief review saves revision time.
• Tip: process billing - 50% of the payment upfront & 25% when you’re 75% complete. If you agreed on 2 revisions cycles, collect 25% before the first revision and the last 25% upon delivery. In the worst-case scenario, you only lose out on the last 25% (which should be your profit margin), so you’re not in the red on the project, saving the company a lot of financial stress.
2. ASSIGN TEAM
• 3 basic roles – project manager, creative director and design fulfilment team
• Goal – the PM and CD collaboratively come up with the task calendar, the overall project needs are broken up into individual pieces (tasks), with deadlines and assigned team members
• Project Manager: makes the tasks and deadlines calendar and ensures deadlines are met, is the liaison between team and client and collaborates with the clients to make sure they don’t feel like they are left in the dark and that they see progress on their project
• Creative Director: manages the team to make sure they have everything they need to fulfil tasks, oversees the creative direction of a project to make sure the design fulfilment team is staying true to the brief, fills gaps to make sure there is progress (so if 2 people on the execution team are busy doing tasks, but there is something the team is behind with, the CD jumps in to fill the gap, to make sure the project is moving along).
• Fulmilment Team: coders, programmers, illustrators, graphic designers, copywriters, they complete the deliverable and report to the PM.
3. WORKFLOW
• Ensure a buffer when communicating the final timeline to the client.
Team: 1 week → PM: 2 weeks → Client: 3-4 weeks
In this way, no one is mad at each other at the end and you give the team and yourself time for error troubleshooting, for when things don’t go as planned.
• Break the project into tasks and milestones: milestones are key points in the project where you should probably meet with the client again and go over everything. Before revision cycle is a big milestone
Tasks have 4 stages (Kanban): TO DO → DOING → FOR REVIEW ( by the PM or by the client) → DONE
Once a task is done we’re on to the next tasks and when they are all done, the project is complete.
• Feedback compiling: clients send feedback almost instantly when they see a design, in the form of little tasks. The natural reaction is to respond by working on it right away (because it is only going to take 5 minutes). When you receive 20 of these little tasks, they add up, and the team can end up in revision cycle hell, where revision never seems to end - you don’t know where in the revision cycle you are and there is no clarity on when does revision start, when did we complete cycle 1, or what cycle are we in? Therefore, it is a good idea to compile all the feedback, put it in the notes or feedback section and when you’re done and ready to go to revision, you will contact the client - we try to make sure that we stay within scope, here is a list with all the feedback we received from you to this point before we go to revision, is there anything you want to add/change/take away from this list to make sure that we are only withing the first revision cycle, so we don’t have to charge for any overages? Clients appreciate this because they know that you were listening and keeping track of everything and that you try to keep them within scope and budget. Your team is going to appreciate you because you’re not overworking them, giving them tasks all the time and throwing them out of their workflow. Sometimes it takes willpower to just not do the feedback right away, but this will save a lot of time.