Project Management for Creative Teams: Art and Science

by The Adaptive Path PM Team

April 2, 2008

The definition of a Project Manager varies widely, especially in the creative fields. Like the approaches and outcomes of a creative project, the team member’s project roles —including the project manager’s — change from one project to the next and from one firm to another. The purpose of this essay is to explore the practice of project management specifically in regards to working with creative teams and their specific needs and challenges.

What’s Different About Managing Creative Projects?

Unlike projects where the approach and methodologies are the same from one project to the next, design projects evolve and change from project to project. They can also switch directions significantly mid-project. As with any member of the team, the Project Manager (PM) has to be flexible while representing the process and structure and tracking budgets and hours. The PM needs to be ready and willing to push back on the often enthusiastic and strong-willed Creative Project Lead and other team members.

The Project Manager is also responsible for fostering a healthy team dynamic. Creative teams often encounter conflict while refining ideas and making decisions. This is an anticipated part of the creative process. However, Project Managers are in the unique position to help cool things off when situations get too heated: Time, money, and the desire for closure are powerful arguments for resolving conflict and moving forward.

Communication: The Key Part of Every Team

At Adaptive Path, we think of Project Managers as “language weavers.” One of the PM’s roles is to help difficult words fall softly on the ears of the client and the project team. The Project Manager is also a broker who makes sure each party’s interest is represented at the table. Often project management is a practice of diplomacy and sometimes a practice of “good cop/bad cop.” In the case of the latter, it is best if both the Project Lead and the Project Manager deliver difficult messages. This provides a balance of delivering a constraint (i.e., limited hours) with an opportunity (i.e., ability to refine the design by focusing on high-level changes).

Setting Scope and Introducing Constraints

Creativity always requires constraints. Project Managers are in an excellent position to help frame constraints and lay the groundwork for successful projects. Setting hours and budgets help create the initial boundaries for projects that could otherwise continue on — well, forever. Before any project starts, the Project Manager has to help balance the project’s scope and get buy-in from team members. The practice of setting the scope becomes easier the more the PM works with a team. With greater familiarity, the Project Manager learns how long certain processes take, as well as the nuances of how each project member works best. Being realistic, even when putting on the pessimist’s hat, while developing the scope of a project will ultimately make managing the project easier.

During each project, PMs must continuously manage constraints by setting expectations. This can happen by ensuring both team and client meetings are defined before they start. It’s often just as important to clarify what a meeting is not about, as what it is about. Plus ensuring expectations for deliverables are established and agreed upon by the project team and communicated to the client. Again, defining each deliverable’s value or purpose — what it is and what it isn’t.

PMs also need to actively manage the project’s scope. With creative projects, there are lots of brainstorming and ideation sessions. There’s no debate that this is crucial to the creative process. However, inevitably, PMs are in a critical position, as we call it, to “kill the darlings.” They must be ready to assist their teams in figuring out what they can realistically accomplish given the time and scope of the project, and consequently, help them let go of many great ideas.

Know Your Tools

Just as designers depend on PhotoShop, Illustrator, and Flash, it’s crucial that Project Managers know how to utilize their tools. At Adaptive Path, we use a mix of custom Excel spreadsheets to manage hours and budgets, a Web app for each individual’s time tracking, and Basecamp for sharing deliverables and communicating with internal and client teams. Avoiding large applications, such as Microsoft Project, in favor of lightweight tools allows us more agility.

Measuring the Health of Your Project

During our weekly practice meetings, the project team updates the rest of the staff on client satisfaction, margin, timeline (week X of Y), and a topic of interest. This sharing facilitates learning; if two projects are encountering similar challenges, the teams can help each other or take lessons on how to successfully navigate similar issues. The Project Managers at Adaptive Path also meet regularly to leverage each other’s experience, and identify how to improve our PM practice.

Where Project Management Can Fail with Creative Teams

Project Managers, like their practitioner counterparts, will often take on too many projects. Knowing that, PMs have to be keenly aware and actively communicate their workload to others. Two to four projects — depending on their size — may be reaching maximum. If PMs manage too many projects they risk becoming a task manager instead of a member of the team. (Clearly, no one likes to be told what to do by someone who has no empathy for the mood, challenges and/or successes of a team’s project.)

PMs need to remember that the Project Lead and the other team members are knee deep in the trenches. And whether they’re creating wireframes, visual designs, or conducting research, they’ve likely developed a relationship and connection to the work that’s critical for project success. If the Project Managers have too many projects, they might lose their connection to the work and hinder the momentum of their teams.

Project Management Success

In the end, successful Project Managers know that each project is a living, growing organism and it cannot be rigidly contained. Designers create real value for people through beautiful, effective design. Project Managers create value through effective integration of people’s skills. It’s part art: Guiding the creativity and communication; and part science: Managing the hours and budgets.