Project Management Tips for Animation Production
What is the one thing every project needs to succeed? Clear communication.
It’s the key to every decision, and in Animation, creating a piece's visual look and feel can only be accomplished when the team can clearly communicate what they are looking for.
Every touchpoint inherits some risk of miscommunication or misinterpretation with scheduling milestones, giving feedback, and keeping teams updated. Project Managers understand this problem wholeheartedly. So as vendors, it's our responsibility to provide clarity around how we work with creative teams to meet their communication needs best.
With Communication Tools, Your Preference Comes First
Your organization has a structure that works best for your team: why change that?
Let your vendor know which tools you prefer to communicate with and how often you want to be in touch. Every team operates differently, and some Project Managers might need access via chat versus email exchanges. Whether utilizing Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, Slack, Text, etc., your vendor should be adaptive to your communication tools.
P.S. We love sending and receiving snail mail before and after projects! 📬
Keeping Email Threads to a Minimum
At the start of any project, identify who needs to be informed of a status update or deliverable at each stage. Animation projects typically come with multiple rounds of revisions per stage of development.*
Consider where specific stakeholders or decision-makers need to provide their input to help avoid a ‘too many cooks’ situation.
By keeping email CCs to a minimum and providing a space for everyone to give feedback, we can manage the bottomless email chain more effectively as a team.
Some tools help to clear the clutter, such as Frame.io, which allows all team members to give feedback in the same space. They can read other comments and reply to provide new insights or clarity.
Did you know? 💡 We’ve incorporated Frame.io into our productions!
To Call or Not to Call
Not everyone is an expert at talking about design and motion (that’s why you’re seeking out experts!). So each team needs to recognize when it is most appropriate to schedule a meeting to discuss feedback or answer questions. If the production is moving forward with assumptions, it can lead to back-tracking, which, unfortunately, can come at a cost.
In Summary
A happy Project Manager = a happy team. So here are the things to remember when working on a project:
❗ Outline your communication preferences with your vendor
❗ Identify who needs to be informed of a status update or deliverable throughout the project
❗ When delivering feedback, consider if a call is more beneficial for the team
Our mission is to provide teams with an invitation into our creative process while maintaining effective communication to ensure timely deliverables. Any production can mitigate the risk of miscommunication by establishing guidelines upfront.
Ease of communication across all teams means that everyone can enjoy the process!