Backgrounds | 12.07.2021 |

Project management as a way to understand and meet customer expectations.

Successful project management requires not only a project and budget plan, but also knowing the needs of the customer and the capacities of the team at all times and being able to communicate these.

How do we think project management?

First, we divide upcoming projects into development projects (e.g. year-round campaigns or further development of corporate designs), recurring commissioned projects (e.g. monthly program booklet or ad placements), and specific commissioned projects (such as format adaptations, etc.). In development projects and recurring contract projects, the convenient time planning capability enables long-term resource planning. At the beginning together with the customer and in the further course of the project mainly internally. More flexible planning is needed for specific contract projects, constantly adapting to new requests and deadlines. This involves close, ongoing coordination with the customer and maximum transparency. When resources are scarce, these projects always have priority, which must be in line with day-to-day business.

Once the initial planning phase is complete, we divide the tasks according to urgency and distribute them within the team. Since we use tracking and forecasting tools, the project management knows at any time the free capacities of the colleagues as well as the professional qualification that is needed. This enables us to give short-term and binding commitments on the project status.

Within the design and implementation phases, we engage the client as often as necessary to ensure that we are meeting the expectations of the project and understand the vision. Through regular involvement, we create process transparency and shorter correction rounds. To further accelerate decision-making processes, we are focusing on the formation of a design commission (read morehere). The customer thus contributes significantly to the success of the project. For us, the coordination process, including the classification and prioritization of projects, is always an iterative process: This scheme enables all parties involved to achieve maximum planning security, simple communication and successful project completion.

Finally, we would like to mention here the high importance of ex-post project evaluation in our way of working. Whether it’s strategy, consulting, event conception, or design process, we always provide our clients with documentation worthy of the project, with (if possible) metrically collected data to verify the measures developed.

Conclusion:

New technologies are replacing old patterns and changing the way we work. The scope of project management is constantly increasing, but its importance in the design process remains constant. Short decision-making and communication channels enable promises to customers to be kept. Project management and the resource planning anchored there are good ways to make internal and external processes transparent.

How important is project management in your company? What makes a successful cooperation with the customer or what do you as a customer want from an agency? Drop us a Mail or discuss with us on Instagram.