How to manage a creative project like a boss!

Whether you are launching a new business, product or service, or rebranding an existing one, establishing the steps and methodology before you delve into the project can be the difference between success and failure, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

With over 15 years experience, we have developed seven steps to creative heaven to help make every project a success. Breaking down the process into more manageable tasks is an organisational imperative and will help you discover your business challenges and define the solution.

1. Discuss: Listen, understand and ideate.

The first step is to find out more about your requirements. List everything: what makes you tick, what the challenges are and how you see success. Go into as much detail as you can, because seeing things clearly at this stage can make all the difference later down the line.

Try to include information on any sub-brands you might have, the characteristics of your desired audience, who your competitors are, what your competitive edge, your company’s values and anything else you can think of that will be relevant for the brand that you’re creating.

2. Diagnose: Review, challenge and discover

Next, you need to gather the information together in a creative brief and use research to understand what will work well and where the gaps are. Try to dig deeper and capture the nuances of your current situation and the goal you want to achieve.

Try to foresee your most prominent challenges, be it a small budget, a very saturated and competitive market, potential difficulties in gaining visibility or reaching the right audience, or anything else you might encounter on your project journey.

3. Define: Investigate, explore and plan

Once you’ve gathered all the necessary data, it’s time to start nailing down the specific tasks that lay ahead. This is where you start to plan the next steps for the project including the resources, team, skill set and KPIs to meet.

While you can never be sure what unexpected circumstances can throw a wrench in your process, your project plan should be comprehensive enough to include details on things like your baseline measures, key roles within the team, as well as the scope and timeline for your project.

4. Design: Create, formulate and solve

With solid foundations in place, you’re ready to let the creative team loose on your project whether that be a brand, mobile app, animation or website. If you’ve provided them with enough information on the vibe and image you want to project, your visuals should fit the project well.

The visual aspects of your brand are likely to be the things that stick with your audience, and make up the majority of what they will associate when they think of your project, so it’s important to be aware that this aspect is a crucial part of making a good first impression.

5. Develop: Build, code and construct

Whether it be a new animation, app or website, coding attractive and user focused designs is at the center of how your product will be perceived. Putting the focus on user experience is crucial to the entire launch and testing process and can make a huge difference in the long run.

If you’re building a website or an app, make sure that the navigation is easy and logical and that you have a mechanism for collecting all the analytics data that would allow you to provide the best experience to your customers later down the line.

6. Deliver: Test, launch and amaze

So often forgotten, this part of the process is almost the most important. Once you’re at this stage, be sure to set aside time to review and improve every project so you can find success!

Testing and tweaking your product or service before the launch can vastly impact the user experience, better define the first impressions you make, and ensure that your audience is amazed by what you are offering.

7. Debrief: Measure, learn and improve

Once the dust has settled and the project is out in the big wide world, make sure to make the time for a debrief to evaluate the output and make improvements for next time.

While it might feel like the party is over, it’s really important that you don’t sleep on your product or think your job is done. Make sure you make constant improvement a priority, as this is the only way you can stay ahead of the game.

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For a more comprehensive guide for the branding process, join our CEO Michael Murdoch for our Workshops on "How to build a brand on a budget" at The British Library.

https://www.eventbrite.com/o/michael-murdoch-ceo-of-the-house-16063052751