Planning a video blog - Starting to learn

Intro

As Iraida Elisa and I have started a video blog together, we have discovered that this project can be handled as big or small as we choose. Our goal is not to earn money, but to stay connected and share our experiences with friends and family. However, this is a great opportunity for a project to be viewed as a professional experience we will gain a lot from, not just great memories on video, but also lessons learned, people met and skills acquired.

To document one process and also dive more into the world of project management (PM), I have decided to share the (rough) planning of the project in regular articles here on LinkedIn. Any feedback and comments are welcome. As I am only now diving into the formalities of PM, I have a lot to learn and appreciate any input that can help me learn or improve the project planning.

Following is the first draft for a project plan with defined goals, stakeholders and a workflow. Also many roles are defined, even if we are a two-person team.

In the following weeks I will work on the different key points the plan defines and refine them. If you have any suggestions reading this article, feel welcome to input whatever comes to your mind!

Project Plan (Draft 1)

1. Goals

• Primary Goal: Stay connected with family and friends back home by sharing experiences and fostering communication.
• Secondary Goals: Learn photography, video editing, planning, scriptwriting, social media, and gain insights about visited places.

2. Key Deliverables

• Weekly travel videos.
• Summary videos for each country visited.
• Final summary video for the trip.
• Experiment with Shorts to evaluate viewer engagement.

3. Scope and Constraints

• Time Frame: First phase ends May 2025.
• Budget: No further investment beyond existing equipment.
• Time Resources: 25 hours weekly; 3 hours weekly

4. Stakeholders and Roles

• Family and Friends: Most valued feedback providers.
• Collaborators: People met during travels who join the vlog.
• Public Audience: Stakeholders for wider reach and engagement.
• Roles: Copy writer, Picture Editor, Director, Project Manager, Content manager, Videographer, Cutter, Photographer, Support IT, Translator, Spellchecker, Asset Manager, Editor, Director of photography, Garbage man

5. Timeline

• High-level milestones: Weekly videos

6. Workflow

1. Take videos and photos.
2. Review footage.
3. Create a script for voiceover.
4. Record the voiceover (A-line).
5. Add music.
6. Cut videos (B-line).
7. Edit for quality.
8. Upload.
9. Design Thumbnail
10. Generate subtitles.
11. Translate subtitles.
12. Add subtitles.
13. Publish.
14. Clean up footage.

7. Risks and Mitigation

1. Hardware loss or damage: Mitigation: Careful handling, avoid public transport.
2. Injury: Project on hold until recovery.
3. Motivation: Focus on goals and request feedback.

8. Success Metrics

• 1 video per week.
• Viewer engagement: subscribers, views, reach, comments, and private feedback.
• Satisfaction with video quality and observable skill progress.

First learnings

One big question is: Is the travelling part of the blog, or is the blog a project running on the side? Planning the travel route, budgets, accommodations, trips and excursions, etc is a big part of what we do in the Latin Americas, however, it is not directly part of the video blog. The video blog is more of a result.

As we have defined metrics (1 weekly video) I can already summarise: we haven't met this goal and are 5 videos behind (9 videos in 14 weeks). Why? One reason is that we do not precisely handle one week with one video. Example: The newest video "Lake Life, Sunsets & Fireworks - A Christmas Getaway - Travel to Guatemala" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtW7c-TCr0k&t=4s) covers our trip from the 23rd of December until the 3rd of January. That is 11 days instead of 7. I would still like to keep this metric, since we also have alternative video sections, not only vlogging about our trip but also creating content outside of the target scope. In a future article I will deal with this issue in more detail.

Also the workflow is not always as strict. Certain tasks can be handled in parallel. Maybe a GANT diagram can give us some more insight into the concurrency of processes.

Next steps

Continuing the vlog is the top priority. As we have some footage uncovered (Flores, Antigua, Guatemala-City, Santa Ana) and plan on making some more content outside of this scope (similar to "Die Braut des Meeres" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-EVibV9wLQ&t=1s) targeted specifically at my nephews and nieces, there is a lot of work to be done.

The PM for the project is a project in itself, trying to order the tasks and processes and optimise the time spent and quality delivered. This will run on the side, parts of it documented on here. This is also an approach to documenting, creating content and broadening my network.

Finally, we thrive on feedback! If any suggestions come to mind on how to improve our planning or even our videos, we greatly appreciate any message that reaches us. Also we appreciate any subscription to the channel, so you do not miss out on the content we deliver to tell our tale.

If you have made it this far, thank you for the read! Share your thoughts via direct message or feel free to post about it! Have a great day - Adios!