Creative Agency Process

12 steps to creative agency estimating success

2012-10-09T16:48:00.002-04:00

Hi, my name is Damian, and I have a problem with the current state of estimating in creative agencies. Do you also have an agency that is averse to estimating? Have things gotten out of hand? Hurt feelings? Damaged relationships? Maybe it’s time to start the healing process and have an intervention. Let’s review a 12-step program that can lead your creative agency to a rehabilitated estimating process.

Step 1: Stop the Denial

The first hurdle your team will need to overcome is the denial that estimating even has value! You may have objections from team members about project complexity or client constraints that prevent estimates from being accurate. It is important to establish the fact that estimating is a process answer to a business problem. The effects of estimating reverberate throughout the entire agency.

Step 2: You Gotta Have Faith

To break the ice, start the process off with a preliminary estimate or ballpark figure. This precursor exercise will ease trepidation or fear of mis-estimating. Even if this figure isn’t necessarily passed along to the client for approval, it gives your team a framework to perform within, and a target to shoot for.

As the project strategy begins to shape up, so will your estimate as revisions are made and, if necessary, a change order is issued.

Step 3: Surrender to a Higher Power

Surrender involves turning over trust to the group dynamic by building the right team.

Establish key team members at each department to gather inputs for hourly resources estimates.
Facilitate PERT estimating to spread the load of responsibility.

When the burden is shared, and load lightened, you will see greater trust in the process built.

Step 4: Make a List

Build the right kind of reporting system and they will come. You cannot simply throw a number out and hope for the best. Track its performance through metrics and keep a cumulative record of estimate performance over time.

Build trust by keeping a scoreboard of estimate success. If you’re right more often than wrong, you’ll build compliance organically.

Step 5: Share Your List

The only certainty of an estimate is that it will certainly be wrong. Be very apparent with numbers that are off. Let team members point out what expectations were unreasonable and why. They’ll come away feeling like a hero and the team will come away with more valuable information for next time.

Step 6: Leave the Past Behind

If the culture can be accepting of the fact that estimates are living documents, you will see a shift in attitude and consequently in compliance from your stakeholders. Adding change orders for out-of-scope requests will go a long way to winning converts.

Step 7: Humility

Abstain from the urge to make excuses for a poor estimate and rather, learn from it. Let it guide your predictions in the future and lead your team to salvation. Estimating is ultimately a guessing game.

Step 8: Making Amends

As your system begins to take off, communicate progress to the key stakeholders. Show them the value of your work with specific examples. A communication plan to project stakeholders is key to success. Treat your estimating implementation like any other project and create that short list of people that you need to impress with success.

Step 9: Forgiveness

Don’t punish folks for falling off of the wagon. Reiterate, with positive messaging, the value added by using your system. If you see folks reverting to old ways, i.e., moving projects forward without estimating, create a retroactive estimate.

The idea is, something is better than nothing!

Your system will not function with holes and gaps in data. If you don’t get compliance from users, take ownership and show them right way to do, even if it’s after the fact.

Step 10: Maintain

The system works if you work the system. Establish a step for estimate creation in every project schedule, no exceptions. Give estimating the look and feel of standard operating process and eventually it will become just that.

Step 11: Making Contact

A successful estimate can feel serendipitous – Did the estimate guide the project, or did the project guide the estimate? Transcendence is attained knowing you have pleased a higher power than us all – the client.

Step 12: Service

As with any process change, you need to control the implementation over time. This means periodic reviews, adaptive adjustments, and an attitude of continual improvement. If your firm practices any level of Kaizen you will know this is no easy task, but one well worth the effort.

Happy estimating!

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What are some of your obstacles to successful estimating in your creative agency?

Drum Buffer Rope for the creative agency

2012-09-10T17:51:00.002-04:00

Is your process plagued by bottlenecks? Does one of your project resources have a gnarled stack of job tickets on their desk? The uninitiated may look at that resource as the weakest link in your process, but a closer examination would point the finger to poor scheduling. Drum Buffer Rope (DBR) seeks to provide a solution to this resource overload through a limiting WIP principle.

Drum:

Like the drummer aboard a boat banging out the pace for oarsmen, the Drum is the part in the process that sets the speed for all other steps, both down and upstream from it. Also, the Drum is the source of dependency for delivery in your schedule. I.E., you can only get as much out the door as the Drum can handle.

Again, it is easy to finger point and call the drum the weakest link in the overall process. But we know the reality is this resource is a sought after and valued team member on projects. They are subject matter experts and the go to person for that work. So, unless your agency hires their doppelganger, you need to revaluate your scheduling practices to help them.

Buffer:

If you've read my other posts on Limiting WIP, then you are familiar with buffer management. If you don't feel like clicking on the convenient link I have offered, I'll give you a brief of explanation.

The buffer seeks to absorb variability by forcing constraints. This queues up task assignments for the constrained resource.

This is a concept that may be hard to swallow for the creative industry; the realization that increased efficiency in your workflow may in fact come from limiting the amount of work in process.

The rationale for limiting the number of task assignments for your Drum is the recognition that your resource is only human. As such, they can only get a certain amount produced in a day/week/month. We force the constraint to this resource by not allowing any new assignments to be done downstream that go over the buffer limit. That is to say, the component pieces of process downstream cannot begin work on a new task that is out of scope of limits set in place; this where the rope comes into play.

Rope:

The Rope is the pull system in DBR that ties the Buffer to the downstream process components. When the Buffer can accept new tasks, the Rope is the agent that fills the coffers for your protected resource. An ideal tool for the Rope component can be found in the principles of Kanban; which is a job board that signals the workflow that new tasks can begin due to capacity in the system.

Summation:

It may seem like a radical idea that limiting WIP can lead to increased efficiency. However, the managers in creative agency processes will surely know there is a constant battle to put out fires and manage chaos due to unpredictability of variability. Drum Buffer Rope offers a tool to force the constraint and control the points of variability.

So, do you think you could pull this off? Could you tell the owner of your company that we cannot start working on a new job until the ones in queue are past a certain percent completion? Would their heads explode? As always, your comments are welcomed.

Reduce lead time with CCPM

2012-08-27T17:15:00.001-04:00

How does your creative agency estimate task durations?

If you're like most agencies, you're using a mixture of historical data tempered with solicited resource input. I.E., I'll start my estimate by looking at what we did last time (if available) and I'll ask the resource how long they think it will take. The CCPM method then adds another step that many in the creative agency profession would find shocking: cut those durations estimates in half!

At first glance, this aspect of CCPM may seem a glib, and possibly even dangerous, assumptive leap to take. I'll ask you to suspend your disbelief until we delve into the topic of buffers that counter-balance this seemingly drastic action. First let's analyze the reason why we are cutting these forecasted durations by half.

Combating Student Syndrome and Parkinson's Law

Student Syndrome is as anecdotal and horesy as it sounds. It is the theory that the resources will start the assignment as late as possible. Parkinson's Law postulates that the task will take as long as you schedule it to take. Give the resource a longer estimated duration and well, you get the gist.

In CCPM the Traffic Manager or Project Manager scheduling the creative project would ask the user how certain they were that they could meet the due date. If the resource answers 100%, the next step is to cut that expectation in half. The rationale here being, if the resource is 100% certain they can finish the task in 1 week, then they are 50% certain they will finish the task in 2.5 days duration.

Cutting a task with 100% chance of completion to 50% of it's forecasted duration is an attempt to nullify depletion of schedule success by creating a sense of a relay race. That is to say each resource ought to attempt to accomplish each leg in the shortest amount of time possible, always cognizant of downstream partners in the process. As with many creative agency projects, the only thing certain is they will certainly go off course at some point. Here is where buffers come in to play in the CCPM method.

Buffers

Here is the step where we can redeem the losses to our schedule suffered by the step of hacking them to pieces listed above. Take the sum total of your cuts and, once again, apply that seemingly dumb and unrefined chainsaw to that sum by cutting them in half. This is now your project buffer. The project buffer is butted up against that irrefutable and inflexible project intangible: the client expected delivery date. Working backwards from that date you now schedule the project from its completion date, minus the buffer, and minus your adjusted schedule.

Buffer management

As your project progresses, you will invariably begin to go off course. Fear not, for behold here is the value of all this schedule Frankensteining you have done. As each task goes over or under, you are not in danger of missing your delivery, you are only moving the crosshairs up or down in a Fever Map of buffer penetration metrics. We are aiming for 0 here so plus or minuses are mapped in red and green respectively. The ultimate goal is to give your PMO the information to direct attention to danger areas.

Benefits

Project delivery time reduced
- In the example we see a two day (25%) reduction in lead time
- In this example that means Thursday afternoon instead of Friday EOD
- Bigger projects equal bigger returns in economy of scale
Early completion of tasks get passed on downstream
- In the relay frame of mind it is ok to come in late but you will most likely see a reduction in task duration that feed process steps downstream
Resources are encouraged to work on a task to completion rather than multi-tasking

Multi-tasking can increase project lead time and reduce quality
Focusing effort via shortened task durations helps eliminate waste

Conclusion

So what do you think? Too radical a thought for the creative agency? What objections would you expect to hear from the stakeholders of the project or the executive leadership of the firm? At over 700 words, was this post "Too Long, Didn't Read" (LDR)? As always, I'd appreciate your feedback.

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Limiting WIP through Critical Chain Project Management

2012-08-13T19:41:00.002-04:00

The Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) methodology promotes scheduling projects in a way that is cognizant of resource constraints and avoids multi-tasking. There is a lot of ground to cover on Critical Chain Project Management but in this post I want to focus on a key area that may be one of the hardest to swallow; limiting Work in Progress (WIP) by staggering project schedules.

Any management style that seeks to limit WIP may meet with some resistance within the creative agency. However, research shows that employing these methods can shorten lead times and increase quality. The graphic example above is a simple visual aid to show how staggering project start times can lead to shortened lead time.

Explanation of graphic:

The graphic above depicts four projects to be completed over four weeks. Each week is assumed to be five business days.

Legend of projects ala Reservoir Dogs:

Project Cyan:	An e-mail blast
Project Magenta:	A landing page
Project Yellow:	Newsletter
Project Amber:	Powerpoint template

Projects all assume the following process steps in order:

Resource	Phase
Creative Director	Concepting
Copy Writer	Copy
Art Director	Creative
Client	Client Approval
Production Artist	Production

The Traffic Manager scheduling this campaign in most creative agencies would more likely than not allow the "kill the man with the ball" resource assignments to occur. Resources may begin to multi-task to complete all the deliverables. That is to say resources may begin to work on components of each project in order to meet the overall deadlines. This method is represented by the series of scattered boxes on the bottom of the graphic.

Delivery dates in multi-tasking method:

Project Cyan:	16 days
Project Magenta:	17 days
Project Yellow:	18 days
Project Amber:	20 days

Now let's look at the example that employs CCPM (the series of waterfall boxes on top of the graphic). By staggering the start dates of each project, we decrease the lead time of project Cyan by 11 days!

Here is our new delivery schedule if we employ the CCPM model:

Project Cyan:	5 days
Project Magenta:	10 days
Project Yellow:	15 days
Project Amber:	20 days

Happy Traffic Managers

CCPM focuses on resource constraints by staggering projects start dates. Another variation on the graphic could stagger the start dates by resource availability. How amazingly awesome would that be?!

Happy clients

The value of the method seems to disipate as time goes by. However, the client is receiving deliveries at an even pace. The lead times, on all but Project Amber, are reduced by a significant amount. This gives them a chance to make all those revisions they are most likely going to make!

At first glance this method may seem unfeasible for the creative agency. Objections could range from unpredictable project mixes, changing scopes, and the iterative nature of creative projects. What CCPM begins to build in the creative agency is the limiting of variability by controlling and in fact creating constraints.

I will be delving into this topic further as it is something that may raise some bristles in the industry. What do you think? You Project Managers, you Traffic Managers, you Production Managers, and even you Account folk… Could this work in your agency?

Critical Chain Project Management By Leach, Lawrence P. (Google Affiliate Ad)
Critical Chain By Goldratt, Eliyahu M. (Google Affiliate Ad)
Value Chain Management by Tuan Hai, Dinh [Paperback] (Google Affiliate Ad)

Kanban for creative agency projects

2012-07-31T18:42:00.001-04:00

Your firm may use software solutions to track project tasks and schedules, but there is also a physical, tangible asset in you work flow: the job bag. Instead of reinventing the wheel to create a perfect system to track their location in your agency, let's "borrow" from the established technique of Kanban. A Kanban Board may be the perfect tool for the creative agency Traffic Manager to track physical assets through your agency.

What is Kanban?

Invented by Taiichi Ohno, Kanban is a Japanese system in the Lean manufacturing realm. The word translates to "Visual Card" or "Sign Board". This can be a physical or digital system that visually expresses the Work In Progress (WIP) of your agency.

It boils down to:

A set of visual signals
Used as instruction to "pull" components of an order
"Downstream" from one part of the process to another
To fulfill that order

If you think about it, the creative agency Traffic Manager uses visual cue systems to do just that.

The job ticket lists out the activities in a system of visual cues
Elements of your order need to be fulfilled before moving to the next step

Representing this process in a centralized location in your agency via a Kanban Board will not only help keep track of physical assets, it will also help identify delays and keep an orderly flow to your process.

How does it work?

Typically, there are 3 components to a Kanban Board:

To do
In Progress
Done

If you are using a trafficking software solution you should have this information at hand for all tasks across your entire project portfolio. As the job bag moves through the gateways of your process, the Traffic Manager posts a colored ticket in each of the three swim lanes described above. A reciprocal card is placed in the ticket and trafficked to the appropriate portion of your process. Upon completion, the customer of this output will have the ticket routed to them and the same ticketing system is applied.

The contents of the card should list:

A Title
Description
Priority
Due date
Assigned user (physical location)
Have a color coded system that makes sense for your work flow

This system could prove to be a valuable tool for the creative agency Traffic Manager. The creative industry is comprised of visual communicators. Having a system that helps express process in an orderly, colored coded, and logical manner could be a shot in the arm to your agency's work flow.

As always, I'd love to hear what folks have to say on the matter. Please leave me some comments and let me know what you think. Or, see this same post over on WordPress and blow me up over there!

PERT Estimating in the Creative Agency

2012-07-23T19:01:00.000-04:00

Are you a glass half empty, or glass half full, estimator in your creative agency? Either way, there is an estimating system that may help meld the two conflicting numbers in a meaningful way; PERT.

PERT is an acronym for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. This is a concept developed by the US military for project management. Whereas a creative agency isn't developing tactical warheads and such, we can certainly glean some valuable insight from this concept in our project estimating endeavors.

NOTE: Your estimating process should have a first step of pulling historical data whenever possible. Even better, maintain a hit sheet of past projects that have quantifiable and qualifiable data. This is your ballpark list and will help you get that initial number out the door. On a secondary pass at the estimate you will have to identify the unique tasks that comprise a project (see my SIPOC post) and speculate what the time and materials will cost your organization. This is where the PERT technique can come in handy so let's review what is and how it can help your agency estimate.

(O) Optimist:
How many hours would it take if all things went completely smoothly? That is to say: the universe has aligned to eliminate all distractions and fire drills. The assigned resource can sit down with an unmolested amount of time and bang out a layout of two unique cover designs for the brochure. How long will that take?

(M) Most Likely:
Given that the optimistic value above is never actually going to happen, what is your best guess? If you don't have the historical data, ask a number of people with that skill to guess.

(P) Pessimistic:
The sky is literally falling and everything has gone terribly awry. How long will it take your designer to layout two variations of the cover designs while dodging frogs raining from the sky?

Now for the funs stuff. Here is the formula pulled straight out of Wikipedia:
TE = (O + 4M + P) ÷ 6

Using Excel or Numbers? Here is your formula assuming your task name is in column A:
=SUM(($B8+(4*$C8)+$D8)/6)

In the example I have shown we see a nominal difference from the "most likely" estimate. Repeat this exercise for all the tasks on your project and what you'll find on the whole is a slight uptick on your (m) numbers. However, that uptick can end up making or breaking your project's schedule and profitability.

One of the value-adds of this technique is combating the perennial optimist that is a creative professional. Typically, creatives want to give a time estimate that delights, not terrifies. That technique is neither helpful to your organization or in the client's best interest.

What are your thoughts? Too much work for too little a pay off? Or is this the greatest idea you've ever heard? As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Spaghetti Diagraming in the Creative Agency

2012-07-17T10:48:00.000-04:00

Spaghetti Junction, what's your function?

A Spaghetti Map is a visual depiction of a physical work flow borrowed from the Lean Manufacturing world. Its primary function is to map, and subsequently revise, processes. By performing this exercise you will measure distance and duration, and more importantly, visualize the patterns your processes take.

Traffic Managers for creative agencies:
Imagine your job bag had an RFID chip in it and you were able to see exactly where it travelled through your organization like a route planned on Google Maps. The resulting lines that criss-cross your organization would end up looking like a glob of cooked spaghetti.

How to perform this exercise:

Procure a floor plan of your office

Your IT folks may have one handy as a network diagram
MS Visio and Omnigraffle also have prefab tools available

Populate the map with departments

Try and refrain from drawing funny characters at this step like: trolls and such

Measure the routes

Have a pedometer?
This step may be overkill if you are in a small office

You then play connect the dots

Track the route your project travels through your organization
NOTE: it will help to have run the SIPOC or each task in your project per my earlier post

Analyze the results

You're looking for redundancy and areas of overlap

Take action on the results

Trim your processes accordingly

Example:
In the example I have illustrated I did a quick sketch of a multi-round marketing collateral project. I also presupposed the client was waiting in foyer–not likely to happen but I've seen stranger. I used Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow as rounds 1, 2, and 3 of creative iterations.

Objective:

The exercise is completed when you look for redundancy or areas that can be handled better. Spaghetti Diagraming is designed to streamline messy processes into leaner processes. Cut the fat. If a process step is not a value-add to your client or your constituents, then it needs to go. In the example above, maybe this particular creative agency should get a smaller table for their Conference Room 2 before someone has a bad accident.

Actions:
In this fictional organization, I've taken the liberty of doing some "Seiton" which is Japanese for "Straightening Out". I've put the Project Management Office team members as gatekeepers to the entire creative staff. This will prevent the executives from going directly to the artists without looping-in the Project and Traffic Managers. We can see almost all the traffic conglomerates there, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Conclusions:
This exercise may lead to some re-engineering of your process. It is not likely the physical space is a big deal in your firm, but who knows, seeing a diagram of your workflow may surprise you. And, maybe, just maybe, you'll get some increased efficiency out of the deal by simplifying your physical processes. Happy diagraming!

Comments?
As always, feel free to comment and let me know what you think. Unless you're an IT person who wants to complain about having to deal with requests for floor plans.

Barely related video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1waGjbGiVA

Visualize Your Workflow with Swim Lane Diagrams

2012-07-09T18:45:00.000-04:00

The best way I have found to diagram a project's work flow is through the swim lane diagram. The swim lane not only tells you the process in a sequential manner, it also indicates roles and responsibilities at each step. These diagrams are a great way to visually explain processes within the organization for both Project Managers and Traffic Managers alike.

Anecdotal explanation of swim lane:

Melrose-Reading Swim Meet 012-7x10 (Photo credit: Paul-W)

Imagine three swimmers (left portion of the diagram above) in three separate lanes. The three swimmers in this fictional contest–Project Manager, Designer, and Production–are the roles within your organization. They each take off from the project start (closed circle) and work toward the finish (open circle at the end). They will invariably pass through gates or milestones (top bar of the diagram) of the project as they progress to the end.

What swim lanes lack for the creative agency:

The downside for the creative agency… The diagrams have a Microsoft Visio feel to them: sparse, dry, and extremely left-brained. That is not necessarily the personality profile of the creative agency team member. Typically, creatives are a visually expressive group that have the ability to convey complex ideas into elegant designs. What if the two worlds could meld?

But what if:

Wouldn't it be great if we could communicate project work flows into infographics for each new project? Agencies are ripe with talented individuals that could nail an exercise like this. And, wouldn't it be a great way to get designers and artists involved in the processes they support?

Project flow as Infographics:

Here is the closest example I could find. It is from a provider of process mapping tools called JOGET Workflow. In this infograhic they deconstruct their company's workflow over time and conclude with a dashboard of metric analysis graphics. Nice work JOGET Workflow!

Thoughts? Do you think there could be value to visually expressing the ins-and-outs of the project lifecycle in the form of an infographic? Or is that pandering to the creatives in our lives? Do you have any examples of this topic in practice? Let me know what you think!

As always you can comment here on Blogger or any of these other venues:

Tumblr or Linked-In or Twitter or Google+ or Wordpress

Schedule Performance Index of Creative Agency Projects

2012-07-03T17:25:00.000-04:00

In addition to the Cost Performance Index I posted about recently, there is another diagnostic tool at the disposal of the creative agency project manager: the Schedule Performance Index (SPI). In this post we will deconstruct the formula, put the topics covered into the context of a creative project, and see the levels of value the SPI offers.

The formula to determine SPI is as follows (See my last post for how to calculate EV and PV):

Schedule Performance Index = Earned Value / Planned Value
SPI = EV / PV

With SPI (similar to CPI) we are looking for a ratio of one or more to indicate a healthy project. One, or over one in the example above, means your project is going according to plan or is ahead of plan. In addition, you can subtract by 1 and get a percentage of the over/under. In the example above we see a project at SPI 1.33 effectively putting it at 33% ahead of its projected schedule.

So what does this translate to for the creative agency project manager? As I mentioned in the Cost Performance Index post, I loves me some indices! An index allows you to strip away dollar values leaving behind the kernel of truth about a project's health. By analyzing your projects across your portfolio in this way, a Project Manager can quickly assuage which projects are in need of help.

As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It is easy to see that a report using SPI can accurately detail deviance from planned schedule performance. Having a tool that analyzes projects with a quantitative ratio across your entire portfolio, is a valuable resource to the creative agency project manager as it allows him/her to pinpoint success and failures from the helicopter view

As always I'll leave with a plea for comments. This blog is designed to fill a gap for the professionals that support creative projects. If you have something to add, or find this stuff interesting, let me know. Also, I may even be open to taking requests! Leave a comment on Tumblr or Linked-In or Twitter or Google+ or Wordpress or wherever you may be reading this.

Performance Indicators for Creative Project Health

2012-06-26T19:34:00.000-04:00

Anecdotal version: "You have a project with a budget of $1,000 that is 80% complete but you've only spent $600 of your budget on it so far. That's one healthy project! We should do this more often!"

Earned Value Management (EVM) is a tool that can help the creative agency get a quick look at the overall health of a project. I want to review a couple of the key concepts of EVM and apply it to a health check that can be performed on a project over time to give the creative agency project manager a useful report to check on a project's health.

The EVM system consists of a series of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that produce objective analysis of projects throughout their life cycles. There is one indicator in particular that I will focus on for the project health check, the Cost Performance Index (CPI). The CPI is a ratio that looks at the cost efficiency of a project. To get this ratio we will need to track a few things on a project:

1. We need to know the Planned Value (PV)

This is essentially the budget of the project

2. We will also need to know the Actual Cost (AC)

This is all the project costs to date (including orders)

These two things will get us to the Earned Value (EV) of a project. We get to earned value by multiplying the project budget by the Percent Complete (PC).

EV = PV * PC
$1,000 * .8 = $800

The percent complete is derived from users marking their tasks complete on a project. That can always be a little difficult with creatives. However without it, the whole KPI metric evaluation falls to pieces.

The Earned Value gives the creative project manager the tools to measure the effort put into completing a project and it opens up the ratio of the project CPI. A project's CPI is calculated by dividing the Earned Value (EV) by the Actual Cost (AC):

CPI = EV / AC
$800 / $600 = 1.33

The CPI is valuable because it tells you the efficiency of your work. We are looking for a value of over one. One would be on track, anything over is a measure of your agency's efficiency. The creative project manager can use this tool to evaluate a portfolio of projects at a glance to see which are in need of attention, thus helping in resource allocation and budget planning.

Calculations used in the graphic above:
PV = $1,000
PC = 80%
EV = $800
AC = $600

Solution:
CPI = 1.33

So, is this news to you? Too nerdy? Too many acronyms (TMA)? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

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The Rule of Seven in Creative Agency Project Management

2012-06-18T19:03:00.001-04:00

If you've read any of my other posts you can tell I really go for the concepts that apply rules to creative agency project management. A concept as succinct and transmutable to business applications as The Rule of Seven is quite appealing to me. In his article, Modeling business processes with the Rule of Seven, Jonas A. Zahn spells out a great use of the rule in regards to documenting process. He applies the rule to effectively "cut away the fat" of for business process modeling (BPMN). I love this idea and I would like to extend this construct the creative project.

Zahn argues the rule should be implemented in business process modeling to accommodate a minimum of 3 unique parent tasks with no more than 7 child tasks per parent. So, to make the analogy from BPMN to the creative project,

Minimum:

3 parent task
3 children each
Total of 12 unique items

Maximum:

7 parent tasks
7 children each
Total 56 unique items

Zahn reckons this is the ideal number of milestones and activities to accurately depict a process. Basically, give the elevator speech, not the miniseries, of how this project needs to flow through the agency. If you can view a project schedule as a process, which I would argue that they are two sides to the same coin, then you can see the value of applying this strategy to your project scheduling.

If you agree with my other posts about standardization leading to leaner projects, and evaluating project schedules through the SIPOC methodology, then you should see the value of applying this construct to the management of creative agency projects. This model can help your firm focus on deliverables by cutting through excess, thus making each step more precisely meet the objectives laid out in the creative brief.

Again, I'd love to get people's input on this. Do you find it to glib to be so focused on numbers of tasks in a project? Or do you see value in streamlining the excess and getting to the core needs of your project? Remember, Zahn proposes this strategy as a guideline, not hard and fast rule. Should we call in the Guideline of Seven for Creative Agency Project Management?

Article referenced:
https://www.blueworkslive.com/index.html#!posts:20000863d816e01

PM2PM - Project Management in an Interactive Agency Environment

2012-06-18T17:34:00.001-04:00

In my kickoff blog I mentioned there was not a lot written on the subject of Creative Agency Project Management... I stand corrected. This blog has a lot to say on the matter.

PM2PM - Project Management in an Interactive Agency Environment

Applying the inverted pyramid model to closing creative agency projects

2012-06-13T08:15:00.000-04:00

Can you recall being in grade school and learning the inverted pyramid system of writing expository essays? The system stipulates your introduction ought to be started out broad and then focus to a thesis point. Conversely, in the essay's conclusion, you should reverse the process by recapping your thesis and move out to broad strokes that recap the points of your essay. I've always liked this model and would I like to propose that its simple relationship can be translated into a project management scenario in the creative agency. Specifically, the inverse pyramid model has value in the realm of closing processes in the creative agency project.

If we presuppose the project opening process flows as:

1 Client input:

Defined as the interaction with the client to determine needs and overall objectives.
Which, naturally, feeds into the creative brief development.

2 Creative brief:

The guiding document about how to deliver messaging is produced based off of input from client.
Logically the next step is to assemble stakeholders to review the brief.

3 Kick off:

The meeting held between project stakeholders to review direction of project using the Creative Brief as its compass.

The inverted pyramid model would stipulate that the workflow from the opening process should be flipped and run in reverse at the completion of the project. To follow this analogy to the fullest extent, we need to define the Creative Brief as the creative agency project's thesis statement. In this construct we need to run the project postmortem task to "restate the thesis" and follow with a Voice of Customer to recap to the audience.

Project postmortem:

This project task is a meeting with the project stakeholders to asses successful completion of the project.

The meeting agenda is to asses how successfully the project satisfied the component parts of the project's creative brief with the delivered outputs.
After internal consensus is garnered it would be prudent to then solicit the input of your client to asses their view of the project by broadly restate the points of our work to our audience in the VOC task.

Voice of customer:

The purpose of VOC is to gather client feedback as to the successful completion of your project by reviewing the project deliverables with the client in order to fully close the contract.

Were timelines met?
Were they happy with the quality?

Thoughts? Anyone out there have a killer project closing model they follow?

5S Lean: Standardization in the Creative Project

2012-06-04T16:39:00.001-04:00

Harmonizing task names across functional areas of the firm, agnostic of their project type

Mention the word standardization in the creative agency an you are likely to see an abrupt change in the countenance of your audience. The two terms, at face value, seem at odds with one another. How can you standardize something as intrinsically unique as creativity? Skilled project management professionals within the creative agency should be able to find the fundamental basics of project work-flow the that can be standardized across what would seem vastly different project types.

In my last post I deconstructed a task in the schedule of a creative project using a component of Six Sigma called SIPOC. In this post I want to review an aspect of 5S Lean Manufacturing that lends itself to our industry: seiketsu. In Japanese, seiketsu loosely translates to cleanliness or "to tidy". The common adaptation of this concept (1of 5 in 5S Lean) is standardization. I want to look at how the project management professional in the creative agency can employ seiketsu to the series of tasks across their project portfolio to create value through standardization.

Looking for opportunities to standardize tasks across project types, agnostic of their functional areas, can bear many fruits:

Tracking budgets across multiple projects

How much effort do we expend doing X in the firm?
Is that the best we can do?
Standardizing the naming allows for meaningful measurement that can address both questions.

Trafficking projects by milestones and deliverables

How many projects are in the planning stages today?
How many internal reviews are due for proofreading today?
Adding standard naming conventions makes it easier to report on project status across multiple projects types.

On the contrary, treating every project like a completely unique beast:

Doesn't offer tremendous value internally or externally
Can be confusing for assigned resources
Misses essential reporting opportunities

When authoring a new brochure project for example, are you 100% certain that you cannot borrow tasks from a Power Point project, or an HTML E-mail? In the graphic above, different project types are calling the quality assurance task by different names. Renaming the task to harmonize across these projects can effectively "brand" the process in the agency.

Again, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this topic!

- Damian

Related articles:

http://leanmanufacturingtools.org/200/lean-5s-seiton-straighten-simplify-set-in-order-configure/

Deconstruct a Task in a Creative Project

2012-05-29T08:47:00.001-04:00

The Task
A seemingly innocuous term that is the building block of any creative project's schedule. Recently, I've been deconstructing the component pieces that comprise a task. Essentially I've been asking myself if certain tasks belong on a project schedule. I have decided to use the SIPOC model to help me suss out erroneous items.

SIPOC
Here is the place where some folks will glaze over and tune out. SIPOC is pretty simple as I can see it: Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers. Let's look at the break down as it pertains the concept of a task on a creative project. We'll use a brochure as our use case for anecdotal and narrative purposes.

Suppliers:
Who feeds the task? If you think of a project as a series of handoffs from one team to the next, who is feeding the task at hand? If you can't pinpoint the answer, I would say revise your process or revise this task right off your schedule.

Inputs:
This is an essential piece to uncover if you want to build a solid schedule! What document, form, or idea feeds this task? In the use case, the artist needs a creative brief (input) in order to produce a draft layout (output). When you map these out correctly, you should have a list of deliverable products that is required to complete your project.

Process:
The way we work. Each task has a unique set of requirements that your firm has expertise in. In the use case, the artist will produce a draft layout from the creative brief using graphics applications.

Outputs:
Every task should have a deliverable product as its successful outcome. Again, if you cannot pinpoint the output, get rid of the task. As you perform this exercise you will start to see redundancy in your schedule. I found many tasks in a project could be combined and a more detailed summary produced in the task description. In the use case, we are looking for a draft PDF of the layout to be produced by the artist.

Customers:
This is one of the places that requires some stretching. The customer of a task is not always your client. Ultimately the work will be for their viewing, but before the draft PDF is presented to them in the project's schedule, the PDF must be proofread. Therefore, the output of this task is meant for the customer of Proofreading.

As the project moves through the Plinko machine of tasks that is your project schedule, each component piece should have a clearly defined set of suppliers, inputs, processes, and outputs. If you find a gray area or difficulty in defining any of these constructs to a task, consider revising or deleting it from your schedule.

What you'll be left with is a lean set of tasks on your schedule that have clearly defined deliverables. These tasks will be easier to track from a Traffic standpoint, and will provide valuable reporting metrics both internally and externally.

Thoughts? Please share.

Kick off

2012-05-29T08:44:00.001-04:00

Objective:
I am beginning a series of posts on the topic the creative process. Not the creative process as you may be thinking though. This blog will be dedicated to those of us that manage creative projects. I hope to share some good insights with you, but more importantly, I'd really like to get people's input and develop a dialog.

Rationale:
Frankly, I don't feel there has been a good deal published on the matter (not for free at least). In addition, most process and project management literature is geared toward manufacturing. There is so much good information in there but it is difficult to envision those topics within an agency. There is a bit of a square peg trying to fiat a round hole happening when trying to communicate the value of something like 5S Lean and Six Sigma to someone working on a creative project.
The hope is to fill the gap that exists from traditional project management and creative project management through discussion, debate, and sharing of ideas.

Background:
I am a Senior Production Manager at a mid-sized firm in New Jersey. I hold my MS in Graphic Communications Technology Management and have a over 10 years industry experience. I really dig process and I enjoy applying that to creative endeavors.

- Damian Sian

Creative Agency Process

12 steps to creative agency estimating success

Step 1: Stop the Denial

Step 2: You Gotta Have Faith

Step 3: Surrender to a Higher Power

Step 4: Make a List

Step 5: Share Your List

Step 6: Leave the Past Behind

Step 7: Humility

Step 8: Making Amends

Step 9: Forgiveness

Step 10: Maintain

Step 11: Making Contact

Step 12: Service

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Drum:

Buffer:

Rope:

Summation:

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Benefits

Project delivery time reduced

Early completion of tasks get passed on downstream

Resources are encouraged to work on a task to completion rather than multi-tasking

Limiting WIP through Critical Chain Project Management

Explanation of graphic:

Projects all assume the following process steps in order:

Delivery dates in multi-tasking method:

Here is our new delivery schedule if we employ the CCPM model:

Happy Traffic Managers

Happy clients

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Kick off