Assignments & Setup

The Project Manager (PM) coordinates all teams, including IS&T or external vendors, working on a project and is the keeper of scope and budget, all while ensuring the project runs smoothly and on time. Project Management is both an internal and client-facing segment.

Project Assignments

Assignments are based on the needs of the project and the skills & experience of the PM and their availability to successfully manage the project. Project Managers work with a variety of schools, colleges, and departments and are not assigned to one set of clients.

Projects will be assigned to a PM by the Assistant Director of Project Management on the ID Pipeline.

Once assigned, specific aspects need to be set up by the PM, including:

ActiveCollab

An ActiveCollab project to track time to — adding team members as the project is set up and evolves.

Creative Services Shared Drive Folder

A directory — duplicated and renamed from a template — for project team members to add necessary project files to.

Slack

The PM should create a Slack channel for the project, inviting all team members.

The following files should be bookmarked and pinned to the top of the channel:

  • Project Schedule
  • Project Log
  • Project Folder on the Creative Services Shared Drive

 

Project Setup

Read on for a condensed version of the Project Manager’s role in the formation of a new project they have been assigned.

A PM will work directly with the Assistant Creative Director (ACD), Strategist, Designer, Developer, Content Coach, Writer, SEO Manager, and Data Analyst to estimate and determine the project approach, as well as to plan each phase of the project based upon the task dependencies that the ACD, Designer, and Developer lay out for them.  

While managing Interactive Design resources for the timely and on-budget delivery of projects, PMs assist their Account Management (AM) partners in relaying and reinforcing project-specific information (scheduling, technical requirements, budget actuals and projections, etc.) to the client by also attending client meetings. However, Account Management is our clients’ main contact, and all communication outside of meetings should be funneled through your AM.

 

Statement of Work (SOW)

After reviewing the project requirements/intake form or holding intake meetings with the client, the Project Manager will start scoping and estimating the project, along with the assigned ACD or manager of other groups within Creative Services.

Once those steps are complete, the PM will begin drafting an SOW. The Statement of Work outlines the goals and objectives of the project, the scope of work that will be completed, timing to complete that work, and an estimate of hours. The AE is responsible for writing the Summary and Purpose in the SOW. It sets an expectation of how a client will need to interact with Creative Services on the project.

There should also be a detailed appendix that accompanies this SOW document and outlines “standard” (e.g., implementing the site on the Responsive framework, supported browsers, etc.) technical specifications for the project.

 

    Kicking Off a Strategy Project

    Goal: To orient the AE/PM on what is required in order to kick off a strategy project.

    Kickoff Requirements
    • Project Charter: Developed + Reviewed by PM Sup + Sr. AE
    • Project Schedule: Updated per estimation sheet(s)
    • Project Team Resourced
    • Kickoff Meeting Scheduled
    • Audit Debrief Scheduled
    • Message sent to team with links to documents for review
    • Strategy SOW – Client approved
    Schedule
    • Smartsheet Creates Draft Schedule
    • PM will update according to estimate + resource availability
    • PM will use Strategist’s availability as preliminary “Kickoff” Date
    • PM/AE should review schedule together
    • AM to provide Client with Stakeholder Interview window – Can they make this window?
    • PM shares the schedule with Strategy Team to review + adjust
    • PM updates schedule – consider it “ready to be baselined”
    Kickoff Agenda Topics
    • Review SOW – Cover the major deliverables
    • Project Charter – Project Team to ask AE/PM questions
    • Schedule Review: Upcoming Tasks, Team to identify conflicts – PM

     

    Implementation Planning

    Once the strategy and discovery phase is completed and the client approves all deliverables, the ID team defines the approach and a detailed estimate for all components using a low-high range. At this point, a full Statement of Work may be developed. The AE is responsible for ensuring that the summary and objectives are indicative of the project at hand. These details are used to build out a project schedule, including any client review periods necessary. Once a baseline schedule has been pulled together and the client has approved the SOW, the implementation project may be kicked off.

     

      Implementation Phase

      Once the client approves the Implementation SOW, and any approach or phased options are determined in a project lifecycle, we move into “implementation,” which consists of design, development (front end and back end), analytics tracking implementation, content entry/formatting, and quality assurance, with support up to launch day and beyond.

      Design 

      The first step in implementation, this is intended to show what the approved page templates will look like in the final site. There are two phases of design:

      Style Boards

      Typically we show 1–2 boards to clients to gauge their style preferences. Style boards consist of proposed colors, fonts, promo box treatments, iconography, and any other visuals that are critical to understand the overall look and feel.

      Mockups

      Once a style board is chosen, it is applied to each page template in mockups. This visualizes how every element of the page will be styled. 

      Development

      There are two kinds of development on every project — back end, which builds the functionality, and front end, which implements the look and feel. Typically, the project designer is also the front-end developer for website projects. 

      Analytics Tracking

      The senior analyst will implement the analytics-tracking plan that began during the discovery phase. This typically happens once the majority of the site has been developed.

      Content Entry/Formatting

      This is typically the client’s responsibility, and throughout the entire implementation phase, they should be working on all of the content for the site.

      Please note that the Content Roles and Responsibilities document is currently being updated and will be shared with the team once complete.

      Quality Assurance

      The final phase of the process, each member of the project team goes through their work to ensure that there are no bugs (development), analytics is set up to collect data correctly, top-level pages are proofread to ensure no content issues, etc. The client should also be participating in this portion of the process, making sure their content is formatted correctly and complete.

      Editorial and Proofreading

      For all websites where marketing writing services are included (including client-facing documentation), an editor should review all content before it goes into the site, and a copy editor should proofread the pages before they go live to ensure all content was entered correctly and there are no errors.

      For websites where marketing writing is not included, copy edit should be reviewing only the top-level landing pages. Any lower-level pages should be reviewed and edited by the client to both ensure accuracy and timeliness.