Project Management for Creative Projects (2017)

Learn to manage a project and balance the goals, schedule, team members, and clients involved in a creative endeavor.

Project management is key to getting any idea from start to finish, but video and photography projects face special challenges that set them apart from traditional business projects. In this course, Rich Harrington introduces the core concepts of effective project management as it relates to work in video production and photography. Learn how to effectively match the services you offer to the project, estimate time, and communicate with clients. Rich shares insights from his many years as a business owner and creative professional.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What you should know before watching this course

1. The "Whats" and "Whys" of Project Management

• The benefits of project management
• When not to use project management
• Reviewing the golden rules of effective project management
• What is the Project Management Institute (PMI)?

2. Understanding Services Offered

• Understanding your capabilities
• Outsourcing
• Partnering

3. Project Management Core Concepts

• Project management's bottom line
• Understanding the triple constraint
• Defining the objectives of a project
• Defining the characteristics of a project
• The standard life cycle of a project
• Using project management effectively
• A typical life cycle for a creative project

4. Scoping the Project

• Scoping the project
• Giving the project a name
• Creating an executive summary
• Refining the scope
• Identifying key roles
• Building the scoping document
• The importance of sign-off

5. Estimating Time

• Using historical data
• Using a time estimation formula
• Getting peer review for time estimation
• Getting external review for time estimation
• When to pad the budget
• The work breakdown structure

6. Client Communication

• Using in-progress reports to communicate with clients
• What information can you share with your client?
• Using online project management Tools
• Understanding the core features needed for online systems
• Managing a project with Basecamp
• Managing a project with Facebook
• Communicating with Slack

7. Project Control Cycle

• What is a control cycle?
• Building a control cycle
• Balancing control with speed
• Enforcing the control cycle

8. Managing Employees and Contractors

• Time tracking
• Recruiting contractors
• Managing contractors
• Determining when to hire staff
• Exploring the independent contractor status

9. Effective Teams

• Reviewing the elements of a successful team startup
• Outlining effective team membership
• Warning signs of a failing team
• Corrective actions for teams

10. Keeping Clients Happy

• Fostering open and frequent communication
• Performing the client debrief
• Being seen as a resource

11. Closing Out the Project

• When is a project done?
• Reconciling change orders
• Reconciling billing
• The project debrief
• Capturing lessons learned

Conclusion

• Goodbye