Are Your Marketing and Creative Projects Being Managed Effectively?

In the increasingly competitive space of marketing and creative design, accomplishing much with as few resources as possible has become many manager's biggest challenge. At IOI, we've noticed creative operations managers increasingly forced to assign team members duties related to implementing new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Project Management software that falls outside of their core competencies. Requiring team members to "wear a new hat" can lead to a situation where, even though you've invested in a new system, somehow, deadlines are missed, and team members don't know what they should be working on daily. So, while you are doing more with fewer people, have you gained efficiency, accomplish more, and are you getting a solid return on your investment?

Keeping Your Team Focused
The answer to this quandary can seem somewhat counterintuitive, but we can break it down into two specific issues. First, when you ask a member of your creative team to help manage your new ERP/Project Management solution, they are either working overtime hours to fulfill that requirement or taking time away from their creative duties. Either of these cases can lead to them burning out or becoming dissatisfied with their job, in a worst-case scenario, leading to their loss. In short, let your Creators create.

The second issue is that project management is much more nuanced than merely setting deadlines. Counterintuitively, investing in a team member whose primary responsibility is managing projects can quickly provide a return on the investment of their salary and speed the ROI for your dedicated solution.

The Power of Project Managers
Bearing the recommendation above in mind, let’s expand on the benefits and detail the responsibilities of a project manager.

Defining Projects
Project managers work to identify what the goal of a project is and help break the project into manageable objectives.

Knowing the Team
As an integral part of your department, one of your project manager's (PM’s) primary responsibilities is to understand your team members’ strengths and weaknesses. This understanding not only helps pair the right individual with the proper objective but also allows you to strengthen team members' weak points by assigning them tasks which help them grow while setting the appropriate amount of time for the job.

Maintain Project Continuity
Project Managers act as a single touchpoint for a project throughout its lifecycle; this allows them to:

• Ensure the handoff from one task owner to the next being smoothly communicated
• Secure enough resources to get a job done by the deadline
• Juggle resources or project dates if someone falls ill, or accommodate retasked team members
• Mitigate disagreements between team members on how the project should proceed
• Reporting to management on progress

Represent Clients Internally
PMs work hand in hand with clients during the project definition phase allowing them to define the requirements of the project, identify potential obstacles, and discover their expectations. This relationship makes project managers ideally suited to be your client's internal representative to make sure you are meeting all of your client's requirements.

Conclusion
Any late delivery costs you money. Rework dilutes your profitability. Knowing what your team's daily work capacity is and planning for it helps to eliminate missed deadlines, unhappy customers, and burnt-out employees. A dedicated Project Manager allows you to utilize the full capability of your ERP solution and is central to the success of your team and their projects.

At IO Integration, we offer more than the implementation and integration of your ERP solution; we also provide Project Management training. We would be happy to work with your project managers to:
     • Understand your business process
     • Create project templates, build in constraints and task dependencies
     • Understand your revenue-generating centers
     • Define resource capacity and resource allocations

Let IOI help you increase your Project Management game by
teaching your staff how to manage a project effectively.
Contact us set up your free consultation today: