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Jory MacKay on July 09, 2024

Jory MacKay

Jory is a writer, content strategist and award-winning editor of the Unsplash Book. He contributes to Inc., Fast Company, Quartz, and more.

July 09, 2024 · 11 min read

While “creativity” is often treated as some ethereal quality that materializes when you least expect it, the truth is that creativity cannot exist without order, structure, and planning.

Unfortunately, there’s almost always a push and pull between creative teams and project managers. Full-blooded “creatives” want freedom to explore, ideate, and come up with unique ideas. While business executives and project managers need actionable plans, realistic deadlines, and metrics to monitor their progress.

With recent data showing that the global creativity agency market is forecasted to grow to $770 billion in 2024, there’s never been a more important time to find order in the chaos of creative work.

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In this guide, we’ll explain what creative project management is, how to manage projects without stifling your team’s creative spirit, and the best tools and processes to get you over the finish line.

What is creative project management? Why is it so important?

Creative project management is the framework to plan and deliver creative projects either within a business team or to a client as part of an agency or creative team.

Like many other types of project management, creative projects are managed and coordinated by a project manager who pulls the strings to keep everyone on track.

But what makes creative project management different is in the subjectivity of their deliverables. Creative projects almost always have a heavy design element, with milestones focused on copywriting, marketing, web design, advertising, and branding — deliverables that can be harder to estimate and track their progress compared to more “traditional” tasks.

But subjectivity is only one issue that plagues creative project managers. These projects also face common project management hurdles, such as demanding stakeholders, unexpected scope changes, and limited budget, resources, and timelines.

All of these elements put a lot of pressure on project managers — but the payoff is worth it.

Here are some of the benefits that come from proper creative project management:

• Helps you to develop a “system” to come up with new and exciting ideas. Unlike IT and construction projects, creative projects are all about creating new and exciting ideas to wow customers. This means a lot of time spent in the concept and design phase of the project lifecycle, with lots of workshops, user interviews, brainstorming sessions, and prototype designs.
• Sets and aligns expectations across the team, company, or clients. Because creative projects are emotive and capture the imagination, project teams must spend time managing expectations. While this sometimes means slowing things down, it ultimately helps get the right outcomes for everyone.
• Breaks large deliverables and goals into specific tasks. Big ideas only come to life with small steps. In creative projects, there are a lot of pieces that need to come together, so being able to break the work down into smaller tasks is critical for success.
• Promotes continuous communication and collaboration. Creative projects rely on collaboration from everyone involved, especially in an agency-client relationship. Despite working across different teams and organizations, the best creative teams are those that continuously communicate and work well as a team.
• Balances quality and speed. Creative projects are renowned for tight timescales and high-pressure deadlines. The best creative project managers find a way to deliver quickly while never compromising on quality.
• Makes it easier to build iteratively and change often. Search for one hundred years, and you won’t find a creative project that got it right the first time. By their very nature, creative projects are iterative, with the delivery parameters constantly changing. Good creative projects plan for this, remaining resilient and flexible to regular changes.

The global creativity agency market is forecasted to grow to $770 billion in 2024, so there’s never been a more important time to find order in the chaos of creative work.

In the best case scenario, project management empowers creatives to do their best work. So what does that look like in practice?

Creative Project Management 101: How to successfully run a creative project

All good projects follow a project lifecycle, and creative projects are no different. To help you bring structure to your creative deliveries, let’s dig into each phase of a typical project and show how they can be applied to your creative team.

Phase 1: Concept and initiation

The concept and initiation phase is where the first seeds of creativity are planted and nurtured. Crucially, this is where team members come together to explore different ideas and solutions to set the foundations of the project going forward.

Key tasks to complete:

• Agree on an outline objective for the project
• Define the scope, including what’s in and out of scope
• Identify any risks that may block your progress
• Set rough timelines for the project, milestones, and deliverables
• Agree to a preliminary budget and what monies will be spent on
• Get sign-off from a senior executive or account representative

What makes creative projects different?

This phase is often formalized by a scope of work (SOW) that details all of the specifics, including the reporting schedules, approval points, milestones, and expectations of both parties.

For creative projects, your scope may be less clear to allow more space for exploration. Instead, you might include a limited number of revisions or a hard deadline for accepting the SOW.

Best practices for creative project teams:

• Get aligned across the team (and with the customer.) If there is confusion, uncertainty, or misaligned expectations, it will only trip you up down the line. To avoid this, schedule virtual or in-person kick-off calls, workshops, and alignment meetings to agree on the details.
• Take more time than you think you need to build out your scope of work. Sometimes called a statement of work or project brief, this document is your best friend during this stage of the project. Once you’ve agreed on the specifics, document and sign them off so you have a clear benchmark that everyone can work off of.
  

Phase 2: Planning and design

If the concept and initiation phase is where new ideas are born, the planning and design phase is where they come to life. Like all good deliveries, this phase starts with the formal work to plan the project’s controls before moving into a creative design process.

Key tasks to complete:

• Break down the project deliverables into tasks and milestones
• Use the tasks and milestones to build a project schedule
• Get time with clients to capture detailed requirements
• Bring resources in to build out a kickass team
• Begin the design work with wireframes, mockups, prototypes, or concept designs
• Sign-off and agree on the design specification with the client

What makes creative projects different?

Unlike other types of projects, creative initiatives often have longer and more involved design phases. This will be an iterative phase, with multiple rounds of feedback leading to changes in your design concepts.

Again, it’s good to limit the amount of time spent in this phase to keep things moving. Remember: constraints breed creativity!

Best practices for creative project teams:

• Know what resources you’ll need to bring in — both internal and external. You may need to recruit a mix of freelancers, contractors, and agencies to help, all with varying lead times for getting started. Start this recruitment process early to avoid delays to your timescales.
• Keep on track by organizing your tasks in a project management tool. The design phase is a highly collaborative process but can also be turbulent. The key is to maximize collaboration and communication wherever you can. To stop you from going down the wrong path, schedule regular touchpoints with your customers, allowing them to provide feedback and critique. The best way to do this is with a shared project management tool like Planio.

Phase 3: Build

With the design finalized, it’s time to build the deliverables. For creative projects, this could include building a website, loading a social media ad campaign, printing physical media, or writing campaign copy.

Key tasks to complete:

• Build and test the project deliverables
• Keep the project on track with status updates and time-tracking
• Provide regular feedback to the client to monitor progress
• Arrange demo sessions to stay aligned on the deliverable
• Track project budgets and manage billing and invoicing for clients

What makes creative projects different?

With such a detailed design phase, unlike other types of projects, creative projects often have a short, sharp build phase. You should already have a good idea of what needs to be made based off of the mockups, designs, and user research completed in the previous phase.

Best practices for creative project teams:

• Track everything. It’s in the build phase where a project management software tool can really help maximize team effectiveness. For creative projects where time is often billable, software tools are great at tracking resource time and providing a common platform to collaborate, gain feedback, and communicate.
• Don’t ignore updates — even if you’re heads down building. While the build phase is often short in creative projects, it’s a time when the team is focusing on individual work. During this period, it’s important to keep the client up-to-date to ensure the relationship is strong and everyone is aligned.

Phase 4: Sign-off and launch

Once the deliverables are created, the customer or stakeholder must sign off to ensure all parties are happy that the objectives have been met. From there, it’s time to put your creative product out into the world.

Key tasks to complete:

• Testing the deliverables meet the objectives
• Gaining final feedback and making changes
• Aligning and agreeing to sign off with the client
• Planning and executing the project launch

What makes creative projects different?

For many creative projects, you only have one chance to make a first impression. Because of this, the sign-off and launch phase can take time to ensure everyone is comfortable and in agreement that the deliverables are ready for launch.

Best practices for creative project teams:

• Add extra time to prepare your presentation. Never underestimate the sign-off and launch phase. In the vast majority of creative projects, there will be snags, tweaks, and changes that need to be made. Plan and prepare for that by allowing for time and budget to rework accordingly.
• Know what your launch plan is — and who’s responsible for it. Depending on the nature of the project, you may either be involved in the creative launch or hand it over to the client to manage. Whatever the launch strategy, make sure you’ve defined this at the beginning of the project so everyone agrees on the support that’s provided and the measures of success.

Phase 5: Monitor and close

If you’re an internal team or an agency involved in the creative launch, you’ll need to observe a period of monitoring to review the deliverable’s performance, capture feedback, and make any changes. If you’re not involved in the launch, it’s straight to the closure phase, where you wash up, capture lessons learned, and disband the team.

Key tasks to complete:

• Monitor the creative performance post-launch
• For digital products, make any tweaks or changes to maximize performance
• Formally close the project with a wash-up meeting
• Settle any remaining invoices
• Capture lessons learned to improve for next time
• Disband the team.

What makes creative projects different?

Many creative projects, especially digital ones, have the opportunity to monitor and improve quickly after launch. This means that if something isn’t quite working, you can make changes to maximize performance and have a second stab at delivering success.

Even if your job ends with handing over the creative deliverables, it’s good to keep an eye on them in the wild to ensure that they’re acting as you expect them to.

Best practices for creative project teams:

• Know what success looks like. Have clear KPI’s, North Star metrics, and success criteria for your project deliverables so it’s easy to track and monitor your achievements. This will help keep you aligned with stakeholders and demonstrate you’ve met the objectives. This is especially important if your agency is paid on a commission basis.
• Don’t be too quick to move onto the next project. No two creative projects are the same. Taking the time to have a good project wash up and capture lessons learned is time well spent. Any pieces of feedback, good or bad, can help you improve for the next project while also enhancing the relationship with your client.

The creative project management lifecycle helps to structure an initiative from start to finish. While all projects have a chance of failing, following a structured lifecycle increases your chances of success while keeping the team and your customers happy.

A real-world example: Website redesign

Now that you know all about the creative project management lifecycle, it’s time to bring it to life with a real-world example.

Let’s look at how the framework can be used to run a website redesign project between a web development agency and a client.

Step 1. Concept & Initiation

Jasmine is a project manager at Web99, a web development agency specializing in website redesigns. Jasmine has been assigned a new project for Insure-a-pet, an animal insurance broker.

Here’s what Jasmine could do to manage the project through the first phase:

• Meets with Will, the website manager at Insure-a-pet, to understand his requirements.
• Will explains the company has recently completed a rebrand, and they want a new 10-page website to match.
• Jasmine and Will agree on the high-level website features, a 6-week timeline for the design, build, and launch, and an overall budget of $4,000.
• Jasmine creates a statement of work detailing the project specification. Will reviews the statement of work and signs it off.

Step 2. Planning and design

Jasmine moves on to the next phase of the project, working to plan out the project tasks and milestones and creates a detailed schedule of work. From there, Jasmine works to:

• Bring on board two freelancers to help with the project: a web designer and a web developer.
• Jasmine works with Will and the web designer to create an initial website wireframe, showing each page and what it will contain.
• From there, the project team creates an initial UI design in Insure-a-pet’s new brand imagery style.
• Will approves the final design pack, and the team proceeds to the build phase.

Step 3. Build

Jasmine assigns the web developer to create the pages approved by Will. During this time, she completes the following to keep the project on track:

• Keeps track of the web developer’s time to ensure they stay on track.
• Invoices Will for the work completed so far.
• Arranges a demonstration of the website build at the halfway point to align with Will on the progress.
• Completes website testing to ensure the functionality works as expected.

Step 4. Sign-off and launch

Once the build and testing is complete, Jasmine presents the final website redesign back to Will for review. During the sign-off process, the following tasks are completed:

• Will suggests some minor tweaks to the website, which Jasmine and the web developer make within a couple of days.
• On the second review, Will approves the website, agreeing that all objectives have been met.
• Jasmine manages the process of putting the website live, with a supporting promotional campaign on Insure-a-pet’s social media channels.

Step 5. Monitor and close

Jasmine supports Will through the first two weeks of the website being live by monitoring the performance, capturing customer feedback, and making minor changes to website copy and imagery to improve it further.

Once complete, Jasmine hosts a wash-up session with the team and Will, discussing what went well and what could be improved for next time. Jasmine issues the final invoice and closes the project.

How to choose the best creative project management software

If you’re a creative project manager, a good project management software tool will quickly become your secret weapon.

Not only does it keep everything and everyone in one place, but it’s also great for automating admin tasks, collaborating with clients, and storing important project documents.

While hundreds of software packages are out there, choosing a project management tool that balances functionality, cost, and accessibility can be hard.

Here are four things to think about when choosing your next tool:

• Is it user-friendly and easy to use? Any piece of software is only valuable if it is easy to use. For creative teams especially, who are more used to working in their own technology ecosystems, project management tools need to be simple, easy to use, and integrate well with the other tools.
• Does it have the features you need? Project management tools come in two flavors: modular or all-in-one. Whether you pick and choose or take it all, the key thing to understand is whether it has the right features for you. Whether that’s task management, budgeting, time tracking, document storage, team chat, reporting, or invoicing, it can be a complicated mix. So, take the time to understand your requirements and match them to the right tool.
• Can you collaborate with clients? As a creative team, you need to work closely with your clients. When choosing a tool, consider if you need to invite your clients inside to come together in one place. If you do, don’t compromise on tools that only permit access for you and your team. If you don’t, don’t waste your money on unnecessary features.
• Does the cost model work? Creative project teams include a mix of internal and external team members. If your team is fluid, with different people coming and going, you need to ensure your tool supports that in a cost-effective way. High monthly or yearly user costs may restrict you from true collaboration, so check out the cost model before you commit!

If you’re a creative project manager, a good project management software tool will quickly become your secret weapon.

Try Planio for yourself — for free. Planio brings together all of the best features for creative project management, without the hassle or headache of a heavy tool. Try Planio free for 30 days (no credit card required) and see how it helps your team excel.

It’s time to get creative — Planio can help

Creative agencies are only getting busier, so to avoid your workload getting out of control, you need to follow an effective creative project management framework.

By breaking your work down into phases and ticking off a consistent set of tasks, you’ll help the entire team stay organized, pull in the same direction, and ultimately, deliver better results. That means happier clients who’ll keep coming back time and time again.

To give your creative projects that extra boost, take a look at Planio.

We help creative teams worldwide plan their projects, collaborate with clients, and keep track of time and costs in one easy-to-use platform. That takes the admin away from you, giving you room to focus on building the client relationships that really matter.