In-house creative and operation teams are working hard to get the balance right between creative input and the volume of their output. Scaling can be difficult if this balance is off. Many are still using legacy tools for creative operations project management. Output and employee welfare are suffering as a result, becuase these tools do not cater for modern ways of working. Leaders are asking, how can they increase operational power without quenching creative spark?
At Henry Stewart’s Creative Operations London event in 2018, Justin Bairamian, Director of BBC Creative, shared ‘how the BBC set up its In-house Agency’, explaining the difficulties he faced with maximizing the performance of his newly formed in-house creative team. He felt that he had to hire an external perspective to optimize his team’s project management processes, as his team “worked too hard and too long” for the level of work that they were producing. The three core objectives of their consultant’s brief were to create a new process that “delivers on time, delivers on budget and delivers on brief”.
More Creative Demand, Less Time
The challenges that faced the BBC’s in-house creative team are common across the creative operations industry. Creative teams are often overwhelmed with the volume and diversity of content that they are requested to produce by clients and stakeholders. According to a recent survey by Adobe, over 70% of creative teams now produce 10 times more content than they did just five years ago. However, this change in expectations and deliverability has not necessarily been accompanied by an evolution in the creative process.
The Critical Role of Technology
According to Screendragon’s ‘Creative Operations Trends, there are still a large number of creative teams using legacy tools to manage projects. 27% of respondents still use Excel sheets to manage their work, and 35% use email, Skype, and other instant messengers to collaborate on a project.
Approvals can be one of the biggest time-wasters and headaches for a creative team. Tracking feedback through old email threads or instant chat records can slow the process down considerably. It is evident that many creative teams are still not leveraging technology to speed up delivery and ensure client satisfaction. As these teams grow, their speed-to-market will likely decline, in addition to their mental and physical well-being!
Additionally, a Screendragon report revealed that 40% of respondents considered the most challenging part of their job to be “Too much time spent on admin tasks and not enough time spent on creativity”. Relying on taxing tools such as Excel or email to manage creative briefing and budgets can consume large portions of the creative worker’s day. This hinders the creative workflow because project management needlessly pulls resources away, leaving them with less time to do what they love and excel at: being creative!
Creative Operations Are on the Rise (And for Good Reason)
More and more organizations and agencies are realizing the benefits of creative operations management and measurement. For example, Peter Drucker’s classic quote, “What gets measured gets managed,” still holds true and applies directly to the often chaotic world of creative operations.
Businesses created the role of Creative Operations Manager or Director to bring structure to the creative process and focus on key areas like speed-to-market, resource capacity, compliance, and more. The creative operations workforce is evolving, and it’s time to further support that growth with an appreciation of the value of creative operations management.
If creative teams are to draw on their artistic spark, they need to withdraw from distracting daily operations as much as possible. The relationship between creative and operations blossoms when ‘operations’ supports ‘creative – not the other way around! In terms of striking the perfect balance, you can only achieve equilibrium with effective workflow management software.
How Creative Operations Management Software Can Help?
In-house Agency Management Software streamlines workflows and enables creative teams and their leaders to focus on the work at hand. Screendragon is an end-to-end in-house agency management solution designed for the needs of agency and in-house agency teams. It allows creative teams to effortlessly manage work requests, design better briefs, reduce the number of revisions, and increase their speed to market!
To find out more about how Screendragon can help boost your creative operations, visit our product pages.
Henry Stewart Events – Creative Operations
Screendragon attends the world’s largest events dedicated to Creative Operations, held by Henry Stewart. These events will equip you with the tools to ease and enhance your creative processes.