It’s time for agencies to adopt a more professional approach to project management and separate it from the job of client relationship management.

The biggest and most important change in agency process is the move to “professionalize” project management and to split the traditional account management job into two jobs.  This more than anything else is helping to make agencies processes more streamlined. 

The chief benefits of a Project Management approach

1. Centralizes workflow information, providing better communication and cooperation between agency disciplines.
2. Provides a central source of information and direction on project requirements, scope, timelines and resource needs.
3. Ensures more timely completion of projects.
4. Reduces confusion about who is responsible for what tasks.
5. Helps reduce redundancy of overlapping roles and responsibilities.
6. Improves timeliness of both internal and external approvals.
7. Reduces agency-caused revisions due to improved adherence to agency process and procedures.
8. Enforces greater consistency across all projects, accounts and departments.
9. Allows agency production specialists (digital, broadcast/video and print producers) more time to focus on their areas of expertise.
10. Ultimately provides for better and more efficient allocation of resources.

The agile philosophy

Project Management is closely aligned with the philosophy espoused by the software development firms called “agile development.”  Rather than the sometimes cumbersome tendency most agencies have to throw a lot of people at a problem, call a lot of meetings, impose layers of approval, etc., the “agile” approach is based on the following principles (framed in terms of software development, but the same thinking can apply to agencies):

• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Other resources

Blogs

PM2PM http://pm2pm.blogspot.com/

Persuasion Arts & Sciences http://persuasionism.com/

Partial list of firms that practice project management

MRM Worldwide

Tribal DDB

Publicis Modem

Resource Interactive

Biggs Gilmore

R/GA

RAPP

Mekanism

BBDO’s interactive division (formerly Atmosphere)

Domani Studios

Mr. Youth

Ogilvy Interactive

Organic

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