Project Management

Project management 

Project management in media is the role of ensuring all aspects of a given production run smoothly by overseeing a number of people and departments. 

The project manager must ensure that deadlines are met and the brief is followed by liaising with others and holding them to account. 

Skills and traits a project manager needs

Leadership skills

Budgeting

Calm

Discipline

Teamwork

Negotiation 

Creative

Analytical

Timekeeping

Good communicator

Organisational

Integrity 

Confidence

Understanding 

Respectful

Accountability

Attention to detail 

Production schedules 

• The best way to manage media projects is to create a production schedule. This brings together logistic and resource details and includes all tasks, milestones and the time-scales and deadlines and allows the tracking of progress.
• This is shared with all members of the production team and contains details of the initial proposal, key milestones agreed with the client as well as final deadline.

What are the key terms in a production schedule?

• Tasks- actual jobs that need doing
• Deadlines- the date when these tasks must be completed 
• Milestones- identified point to be reached within the project
• Contingencies- back up plan/ideas, alternative option.  

Project management tools- Gantt chart

• Most popular project management tool
• Helps to organise and oversee the progress of a project
• Becoming increasingly sophisticated 
• Traditionally made on a simple excel sheet
•  Karol Adamiecki invented the gantt chart
• Gantt charts plot time along the horizontal axis
• Along the vertical axis are activities and tasks
• Equal units of distance along the horizontal axis represent the units of time
• Each block represents a task
• Length of the bar represents how long the task will last
• Positioning of the bar represents the scheduling -the way the tasks are positioned represent the order the tasks need to be done in
• Other work streams run in parallel 
• A simple shape can represent a milestone, such as a diamond
• Draw a vertical line on the day you are at so you can assess if the employees are on track-contingency
• Always include a key for gantt chart
• Main reason for gantt charts is to monitor and track progress

• Choose revenue stream
• Hire directors, producers, editors and a camera crew
• Rent/buy the resources needed
• Find a location 
• Create a mood board of ideas
• Create a storyboard
• Create a script
• Editing
• Distributing
• Marketing and advertising