Beginner’s Introduction to Creative Project Management
- Adilla
- May 2
- 4 min read
Project management has significantly evolved, transitioning away from the rigid structures that were previously utilised. As creative projects become increasingly common, it is important to adopt a project management style that aligns with these demands. Project managers must embrace creative processes that allow for flexibility and adaptability to ongoing changes.
Knowing creative teams, they strive better in an environment where they can brainstorm and grow their ideas freely. Hence, they need to have a team leader who understands the controlled chaos of a creative team so they can focus their energy on creating and executing.
Table of Contents What is Creative Project Management?
What is Creative Project Management?
Creative project management is the organised approach to planning, coordinating, and supervising tasks and resources to effectively execute creative work. Technically, like its traditional counterpart, but without the rigidity and fixed structure.
It has the open space to allow creative teams and artists to change the flow of the project without affecting the deadline or overall goal of the project. Naturally, this is also applied to artist project management as well.
Why is Creative Project Management Important?
Other than ensuring that a creative project runs smoothly, there are a few other reasons why it is important:
Lays Out the End Game
Like any project management, creative or artist project management helps provide the end goal for creative teams to achieve. Whether it is to create a website or design a product, creative project managers can help define these goals and break them down into actionable steps so team members can see how this shared goal can be achieved.
Balances Workload
Once the project is properly laid out with all the creative processes in mind, the workload throughout the team will be allocated according to everyone's creative abilities and strengths, considering their capacity as well. Thus, it minimises the chances of an imbalanced workload among the team members.
Encourages Collaboration and Improves Accountability
Once the team understand their tasks and roles, a well-planned project timeline will foster collaboration. This is important, as it will prevent misunderstandings and conflicts that could interrupt their creative workflow. With a clear outlook on everyone’s responsibilities, team members would be more encouraged to discuss and collaborate while improving their accountabilities.
Enhances Productivity
Now that the project timeline is clear and the assigned tasks are clear, work among the team members becomes efficient, and productivity will be enhanced. This is achievable because effective creative project management eliminates bottlenecks and minimises unnecessary tasks that do not positively impact the project goals.
Tools to Implement Creative Project Management
While not all project management software provides the tools to implement creative or artist project management, it can help you handle the administrative work and organise tasks that make your work possible. What makes a project management software work for creatives is that it must have the features that are not only asset-centric but also people-centric. The few tools that you can use to execute this management method are Asana, Trello and TESSR.
These creative project management tools stand out because they have the necessary features to assist creative teams in planning their projects. These features include the visual view of the project timeline, creating reusable templates for other projects and a collaborative feature to streamline communication and any necessary updates.
However, TESSR is a free creative project management software designed specifically for creatives and artists, as its goal is to provide a tool that is people-centric to encourage team members to focus on what they do best.
> Book a demo with us and try it out yourself! (Psst, we have a forever-free plan.)
Conclusion
It is certainly hard to try to structure and organise creative teams, but that is why they need to have a project manager who understands the controlled chaos that creative projects are. By implementing creative project management rather than its traditional counterpart, any delayed creative process that happens within a project would be well considered within the creative project manager’s risk management plans.
FAQs
Are creative operations the same as creative project management?
Although both roles support creative teams during projects, their focuses differ. Creative operations concentrate on the entire creative process, evaluating team members to identify areas for improvement. In contrast, creative project management is centred on individual projects, acting as a bridge between team members and the clients involved in those projects.
Would multiple creative project management software be needed when conducting creative projects?
Not necessarily, as it entirely depends on your creative project.
Is it difficult to learn creative project management?
It can be challenging when you are new, but not entirely difficult. While it has the fundamental principles of a project manager, creative project managers must be prepared for the flexibility required to accommodate changes throughout the project timeline.
Author Bio
With a background in Arts English, Adilla has been a casual writer for various hobbies, including parodies of animated shows and plots for board games like Dungeons & Dragons. She loves to read anything and everything from fantasy stories to articles on tips and tricks. Currently, Adilla resides in Malaysia and is a creative writer at TESSR. One day, she is eager to publish her book. To know more about her, check out her LinkedIn.
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