ID Management-Oriented Information Processes

Project Managers have a lot of tools and documentation that they need to keep on hand to use frequently. Here are the most used tools and documents that are needed by the Project Managers:

PM Tools & Documentation

 

Project Set Up:

At the beginning of any project certain steps need to be taken to set up all necessary tools for the project.

  • Project Assignment: Your project assignment will come from the Assistant Director of Project Management on the ID Pipeline.
  • Active Collab
  • Creative Services Shared Drive Folder
  • Slack
  • The PM should create a Slack channel for each project, inviting all team members. 
      • The following files should be pinned to the top of the channel
        • Project Schedule
        • Project Log
        • Creative Services Shared Drive Project Folder

  • Statement of Work:
  • 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 CS. Once those steps are complete, they 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 also begins to set expectations of how a client will need to interact with Creative Services on the project. There is also a detailed appendix that accompanies this document and outlines “standard” technical specifications for the project (such as implementing the site on the Responsive framework, supported browsers, etc.)
  • Project Management tools used:
      • Estimation: 

 

    • Schedule: 
      • Once SOW is signed the PM should build the project schedule in Smartsheet.
      • A detailed schedule will be developed by the PM assigned to the project and is typically created in a project management tool called Smartsheets. The schedule built is based on every task that needs to be completed in order to launch the project. Because of this, it may not be appropriate to share this level of detail with the client, to ensure that there is no overall confusion and to allow for a level of flexibility on our end in case tasks should shift/change order. Instead, the client is often provided a simpler schedule that includes only the key milestones and presentation dates.

  • Resource Management
  • PM manages resource plans throughout the project by weekly updates of project resource allocations based on any shifts within the project schedule.

 

Recurring Meetings for Project Management Team Members 

  • Weekly Status meeting: Each week, representatives from the various CS departments, including leadership and all AEs and PMs, gather to discuss project priorities for the week ahead, current statuses, next steps, decks/estimates/SOWs in development, and upcoming client meetings.
  • The purpose of this meeting is to inform senior leadership of key initiatives and top-level projects currently in progress. This meeting is not meant to review specific project details. If there is creative work that needs to be reviewed by senior leadership, AEs will alert the associate director and relevant team members to join the meeting at 10:45.
  • Weekly Status Tools:
  • Project Priorities—aka “the hot sheet”; this form is used to point out priorities for the week or two ahead. 
  • Project Inventory Grid—This summary includes all projects in development as well as new projects waiting for resources to be assigned so the project can be kicked off. 
  • ID Resourcing: Purpose is to review current project assignments, statuses, and allocations for ID resources and discuss potential resourcing/team assignments; attendees include all assistant creative directors (ACDs) and PMs; director of development; assistant director, Interactive Design/Project Management; senior analyst; senior web producer (weekly on Mondays).
  • ID Leads / PM Team Touchbase: Purpose of the meeting is for PMs to bring any project issues or questions to the ID Leads attention and attempt to decide on next steps to resolve.
  • 1:1s with supervisor: Purpose is to provide a regular check-in, used to give feedback, keep each other in the loop about projects, discuss concerns, and help direct reports grow in their roles (weekly).
  • Project Management Team meeting: Purpose is to gather as a team to collaborate, share important/helpful information, address roadblocks, help problem-solve, and ask questions; led by the associate director, Account Management (weekly).
  • All CS check-in: Purpose is to provide updates on University and CS department news and answer questions; led by VP of Marketing & Creative Services (twice a month).

 

 

Kicking off a Strategy Project

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

 

Kick-Off Requirements

  • Project Charter: Developed + Reviewed by PM Sup + Sr. AE
  • Project Schedule: Updated per estimation sheet(s)
  • Project Team Resourced
  • Kick-Off 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 Strategists availability as preliminary ‘Kick-off’ Date
  • PM/AE should review schedule together
  • AM to provide Client with Stakeholder Interview window – Can they. make this window?
  • PM share the schedule with Strategy Team to review + adjust
  • PM updates schedule – consider it ‘ready to be baselined’

 

Kick-Off 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 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 of the Implementation SOW, and any approach or phased options are determined, we move into “implementation,” which consists of design, development (front and back end), analytics tracking implementation, content entry/formatting, and quality assurance.  

  • 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 to 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, 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.