Creativity isn’t something that you can enjoy all the time. The muse may disappear all of a sudden, leaving you without ideas and motivation to continue working. But is that a good reason to let your clients down if they paid for a specific product and negotiated a particular deadline with you? Definitely, not, and if you’re an owner or a manager of a creative agency, knowing the basics of creative workflow management is a must.
Here WriteEssayForMe experts share the secrets to organizing the creative workflow process in a way that guarantees no downtime. Your staff will remain permanently motivated and able to deliver the project according to the estimated deadlines, ensuring that your clients are satisfied.
Table of Contents
Essentials of Creative Workflow Management
Here we have compiled a list of steps that the person monitoring the creative workflow process should take before and during the project’s completion. You’re sure to see sizable performance improvements if you include these elements in the work routines.
#1 Don’t Start the Creative Workflow Process without a Roadmap
Starting to work on the project without realizing its detailed specifications is a road to nowhere. Your team will soon get confused about what is required from them, when to complete the chunks of tasks, and how their progress will be monitored. Thus, it is essential to define the key project parameters at the planning stage. Include the following elements into the plan:
- The target audience of the project
- Client’s design preferences and expectations
- The anticipated features of the project
- Budgetary estimates
- Deadlines for significant milestones and the entire project
With these details clarified and approved by your client, your team will be able to follow a much clearer path of project completion, with everyone being on the same page and knowing what is expected from them at every project phase.
#2 Set Deadlines for Every Stage
Every project is manageable, no matter how massive and long-term it is. To make it simpler, you need to divide the entire workload into bitable chunks so that your team can undertake the work in stages. Each stage should be described in detail so that every staff member knows what is expected from them and when the intermediate results should be submitted for an audit. Having such a plan is comfortable both for the team and for your client, simplifying the tracking and reporting process.
#3 Avoid Role Conflict or Ambiguity
Every project team consists of members performing their specific tasks, completing each other to set up a functional unit of your agency. Still, at times, one staff member can substitute another one to complete specific tasks. Thus, you need to assign clear roles to each employee at every stage of project work so that two persons don’t complete one task simultaneously. Confusion causes delays in project work, so clarifying all roles and documenting them in some project management tracker is a wonderful way to keep everyone meaningfully engaged in the process.
#4 Visualize the Work Progress
As we’ve mentioned above, using some project management software is a wise choice because you can visualize the progress tracking charts and histograms for every employee, thus getting a quick glimpse at the project’s progression. Such software uses color coding for different tasks and employees; it alerts the staff about lateness or updates, thus helping you track and manage everything more effectively.
#5 Prioritize the Client
The project can sometimes stray away from the initial specifications because the developers have an alternative view of its design or receive vague, incorrect project details. Thus, it is vital to keep the client in the loop and organize regular audits of the work you’ve already completed on the project. If the client’s expectations are ignored, they won’t pay you for the work done, so it’s counterproductive to wait until the very last moment to show the result to clients.
To keep clients informed and satisfied, you can:
- Discuss all project specifications with the client at the planning stage. Even if the client still doesn’t know what they want, you should agree on some initial steps and schedule meetings for further details.
- Demonstrate your weekly progress to the client via reports and MVP reviews so that they can give feedback and indicate corrections early.
- Create a shared document for your team and the client to view the project’s progression and evaluate the timeline.
- Don’t give unrealistic estimates to the client only to win the project. It’s better to be honest about deadlines and meet them than to lie about your productivity and then give excuses for lateness every day.
This simple set of recommendations for client communication can improve your relationship and ensure that the client will be satisfied at the end of your collaboration.
#6 Monitor Progress Continuously
Another tip for streamlining your creative agency’s work is monitoring all employees’ progress and regularly checking with them. Still, it’s recommended not to be too controlling and overseeing as employees of creative organizations need some freedom and flexibility to perform at their best. So, not to scare people off but stay updated about their progress, you can use daily morning meetings, scheduled Zoom meetings, or face-to-face checkups with each staff member. During these meetings, you can quickly check whether all team members understand their assigned tasks, have all materials at hand, and have completed the previous chunk of work without pushing on your staff and intimidating them with tough control.
Setting up a Creative Workflow Process Isn’t Hard
As you can see, creative workflow management is simple and manageable; the only secret to success is to identify the key milestones and keep everyone in the loop. Your staff will quickly adapt to the new way of organizing work on creative projects as this algorithm is perfect guidance and assistance in work. Thus, your creative agency will have all chances to enjoy a steady influx of clients knowing that creative projects will be done on time and with high quality of performance.