5 Steps to Creative Project Planning | Workamajig

Creative project planning is not as daunting a task as it may seem — it comes down to understanding a few general things: 

1. The scope of the work and expectations. What is being requested of your team? 
   
   
2. The required resources to execute and meet expectations. Who do you need to pitch in on this project? Do you need to source freelancers? Will you be planning marketing campaigns or placing media buys? What costs do you expect to incur? 
   
   
3. Scheduling and timelines. When can you realistically secure the required resources and complete the work? How many hours will the entire project require? 

Once you have a process for project planning, this task becomes increasingly easy. Many teams even create project planning templates for the different types of work they do or services they offer so they can quickly plug in fields, calculate timelines, and kick-off. 

Our guide explains the five steps to understanding these items and creating a clear, organized project plan. 

We’ve been working with creative teams for 30+ years to support their processes and help them work more efficiently. We’ve designed our creative project management system, Workamajig, with features to support all of the best practices we’ve learned in our experience. It provides a suite of project planning tools and templates to structure and streamline this part of teams’ workflows. 

If you’re interested in chatting with our team and learning more about Workamajig best practices after reading our guide, you can request a free demo with us. 

How to Develop a Creative Project Plan

The five steps to creative project planning include: 

1. Gathering project details
2. Outlining all of the tasks to execute the work
3. Assigning team members to tasks — specifying their responsibilities and due dates
4. Planning budgets and timelines (and communicating these with requesters)
5. Executing the plan & monitoring progress to keep projects on course
   
   

Step 1: Gather all relevant project details to fully understand the scope of requested work

Step one involves conversations and decision-making at the project intake step. Here, project managers collaborate with requesters to define the project scope and understand the key objectives of the work. 

What deliverables do you need to create? What is the desired end product? What outcomes do you aim to achieve? When does work need to be completed?

During these conversions, you want to establish: 

• Timelines & milestones. Instead of having only one primary deadline, you should split projects into phases and set expected timelines for each milestone. (Most projects should include 8-12 milestones.) This improves project monitoring and makes it easier for all parties to see projects are on schedule. 
  
  
• Deliverables (the creative work you’re handing off throughout the project). 
  
  
• Success metrics. These are the metrics you’ll measure to determine the project’s success. You’ll want to monitor budgets and timelines but these metrics may also include impacts of campaigns; for example, many teams measure the reach or conversions from PPC campaigns to determine their success.  

This allows you to create a scope description to share with all stakeholders. After you’ve defined the scope of the project, you should then: 

• Define the scope quality. This details the quality standards a project must meet and the potential risks of meeting them. 
  
  
• Create a scope plan. Consider what your teams need to do to complete the work. You can build a work breakdown structure (WBS) by dividing the project into smaller subprojects and defining the deliverables at each stage. 
  
  
• Build your project team and create a resource plan. Determine who will play a role in projects (and the roles they’ll play). Think about budgets to secure these resources.   
  
  
• Plan a schedule for completing milestones. Determine when you can (realistically) achieve each milestone. Consider potential risks and delays along the way. 
  
  
• Include a change management plan. Change requests, edits, and out-of-scope requests can all impact project timelines, so having a plan to accommodate and document changes helps teams avoid scope creep and keep projects on course.  
  
  
• Summarize the scope in an executive summary. Outline everything you’ve gathered in your research into a neatly organized document. Include the creative brief, expectations, deliverables to create, acceptance criteria, potential risks, project stakeholders, timelines, and more. 

You can also learn more about each of these high-level planning steps in our guide here.   

This first step is arguably the most important because it sets the course for everything afterward. 

You may (and should) spend ample time on this brainstorming to ensure you’ve gathered all the details and information relevant to completing the work. Being thorough here helps you avoid changes, extra requests, and major blunders, like clients being dissatisfied with work, pausing projects, or significantly changing course mid-project. 

Creating comprehensive project intake forms can help streamline this process and gather a wide swath of information at the first contact. You can design forms for different project types, clients, and departments so others know exactly what to provide in requests.

Related read: 5 Best Project Intake Software for Creatives & Marketers (2024)

Step 2: Outline all of the tasks to complete milestones & projects

We mentioned creating a scope plan above — where you break your project into small subprojects and specify the deliverables at each stage. Here, you get more detailed by planning the actual tasks required to complete each subproject and create deliverables. 

For example, a client has hired you to rebrand their website and manage that development work. This project would obviously have a few subprojects — for instance, you might need to:

• Design the creative assets for the rebranding. What logos, colors, fonts, imagery, or media will you need to create? 
  
  
• Create mockups for home and other landing pages (i.e., design the website’s look and feel).
  
  
• Develop and test the site. 

As you can see, each of these is still a high-level task — so now is the time to dig into each and determine exactly what your teams must do to execute in each area. 

List the various tasks below each subproject — in chronological order — so you can visualize the more detailed roadmap and create a clear queue for project teams to follow. 

By now, you should have the start of your project schedule, including: 

• The scope of work 
• The milestones and subprojects
• The tasks to complete each subproject 
  
  

While listing tasks, consider the resources and people you’ll need at each step.

Step 3: Assign team members & specify due dates and responsibilities

Once you have a clear list of tasks to complete, it’s time to assign tasks to project team members and ensure everybody knows the expectations for each task. 

If you’re sourcing freelancers or other third parties to assist, now is the time to integrate them into your project management system (or whatever system you use to assign and share task details) and ensure they understand their responsibilities. 

You also want to communicate deadlines with each task so projects remain on schedule. 

However, instead of setting one due date, remember that each task will likely require reviews and revisions, so you want to account for that time during your planning. 

Each task may have several due dates: a due date for the first version, another deadline for feedback, another for edits (and so on) until the final due date. Outlining these due dates improves time management, creates more structure in the feedback process, and ensures schedules don’t get thrown off course with several rounds of revisions. 

If you finish a task early — perhaps you can shave off a feedback loop — you’re now ahead of schedule. 

Step 4: Plan budgets, communicate these with requesters, and receive the final sign-off

After you fully understand the work and resources required to complete projects, you can begin building an estimate with expected costs and budgetary details. 

You can start by considering the costs for each task: measure the budgeted hours and costs of project team members’ time to get a general idea of how much you’ll spend to complete each task. 

Continue this process for each task and subproject, considering all project-related costs — if you’re sourcing contractors or vendors, running advertising campaigns, or placing insertion orders, you’ll want to include expected costs for those as well. 

You should now have a comprehensive list of costs for each project item, providing you with a clear estimate of the total cost to execute the project.

Then, you can consider your rates and margins to determine how much to bill for each item in project estimates.

After calculating expected costs, we suggest creating budgets by milestone; this makes it easier to track expenses and budgets throughout the work. 

You can also design estimates that show the budgets at each milestone so requesters can see the project phases and costs to complete different aspects of the work. Of course, you’ll also include one comprehensive total for requesters.

At this point, requesters and managers should review estimates and project costs to ensure all parties agree with the proposed plan.

After this review, you’re ready to kick off! 

Step 5: Execute project plans, monitor progress & collaborate with requesters along the way

It’s time to execute the plan and keep projects on schedule. Closely monitoring project progress and costs (down to the task level) is the best way to stay the course. This involves:

• Tracking task progress, feedback loops, and when tasks are marked complete. 
• Logging project hours per task. 
• Recording project-related expenses as they’re incurred.
  
  

Then, you can be proactive in your project management — instead of jumping in after projects have already exceeded budgets or timelines.

For example, if you see a task taking longer than expected and you’re almost at the due date, you could step in to see what’s going on and what is necessary to finish on time. 

What are the details of the feedback, and how has the content evolved through iterations to address requested changes? Are there miscommunications or a disconnect between project teams and requesters causing bottlenecks? What exactly is required to achieve the desired end product?   

Then you can ask yourself: Do you need an extra hand? Should you reassign the work to someone else who can bring it over the line? How would those changes affect budgets?

You have the information to do all this evaluation and troubleshooting before tasks exceed deadlines; feedback processes or resource reallocation don’t have to impact the greater project timeline or push projects over budget. 

Creative Sign-Off (& Project Completion)

The creative sign-off is the very last step in your project workflow. It occurs when all work has wrapped up, and clients have received and approved the deliverables. 

If you’re in an agency setting, this is when you can invoice and get paid for your work, which is hugely important to most teams. 

If you’re working in an in-house setting, this is when you can report on outcomes of campaigns, or other teams are free to use the content you’ve created for them. 

Then, your work is complete! 

Creative Project Management in Workamajig

As mentioned, many teams rely on project management tools to oversee the creative project lifecycle (the intake process, planning, monitoring, collaboration, sharing deliverables, and more). 

Our solution, Workamajig, is a creative project management tool — meaning it’s specifically designed to support all aspects of creative workflows — for agencies and in-house teams. 

We work with graphic designers, marketers, ad agencies, and in-house teams at a wide variety of organizations. We have decades of experience consulting with teams and (continually) optimizing Workamajig to support creative processes. 

Workamajig provides all of the tools you need to plan creative projects and manage their execution, including: 

• Customizable project intake forms & sales CRM to manage requests and discuss project details and expectations (and templates to streamline the creative planning stage).
  
  
• Task management to divvy new projects and subprojects into tasks, allocate hours for tasks, and add due dates. 
  
  
• Resource management to strategically assign staff and freelancers to tasks (and double-check that all tasks are assigned and covered). 
  
  
• Project monitoring with customizable Gantt charts to visualize project progress and track budgets alongside timelines. We also send notifications when projects risk exceeding budgets or deadlines so you can proactively course correct. 

• Time tracking (directly on task cards) so project teams can record hours by task. This assists the timeline and budget tracking functions; budgets and expected end dates update in real-time as employees add project hours and mark tasks complete. 

• Collaborative tools so project teams and requesters can comment with each other, provide feedback, track edits, and efficiently complete tasks. 
  
  
• User portals, so clients or members of other departments in your organization can check project progress, join feedback discussions, and access deliverables. Managers can also add project intake forms to portals so others can easily request work. 
  
  
• A full accounting suite with tools to automate invoicing, process and pay vendor invoices, and monitor real-time cash flow. We also integrate with media buying systems and bank or credit card accounts to consolidate all project-related costs.  
  
  
• An array of financial and agency insight reports to measure the profitability of projects (or services, or client relationships), employee hours, and overall productivity.   

• And more.
  
  

You can watch a brief demo of our software below: 

We work one-on-one with each client to understand their creative operations (who they work with, services they offer, workflows, etc.) so we can tailor each instance of Workamajig to individual client specifications. 

Then, we gameplan and guide onboarding so you’re trained on features and understand the ins and outs of our platform. After starting, you’re assigned a dedicated account manager who can answer questions, change settings, or help anytime.  

If you’re interested in learning about our solution and how it can work for your creative teams, you can request a free demo with our team. 

You can also read more about Workamajig and compare other top-rated creative project management software in our guides below: 

• Best Project Management Tools for Creative Agencies
• Best Marketing Project Management Software
• Creative Workflow Management: Best Practices + Software Tools
  
  

FAQs

What is creative project management?

Creative project management encompasses all processes involved in planning, executing, and delivering creative projects. It gives structure for completing creative work and includes planning required tasks, resources, and timelines, project monitoring, team collaboration, and reporting on outcomes. 

What are the steps in a creative project?

1. Initiation. This is when somebody requests work, whether a client (an agency setting) or another department in your organization (an in-house setting).  
   
   
2. Planning. This includes the steps above — gathering details to understand the scope of the work and project objectives, planning resources and timelines, assigning team members, setting budgets, and communicating expectations with all stakeholders.  
   
   
3. Execution. This involves the kick-off of creative work and team collaboration. 
   
   
4. Monitoring. This is crucial to keep projects on schedule and requesters satisfied.
   
   
5. Reporting. We recommend this best practice to learn more about productivity and profitability. Measuring project ROI may not be as relevant for in-house teams that deliver creative content for other business departments, but it’s critical for agencies to ensure they see profits. 
   
   

What are the keys to successful creative project management?

The keys to successful creative project management include: 

• Creating clear, organized project plans. 
• Communicating project plans to all relevant parties (team members pitching in and those requesting the work). 
• Setting measurable project goals and monitoring progress. 

Most of all, it’s critical to set yourself up with the right tools to create project plans, keep projects on course, track progress, and enable stakeholder collaboration. 

Getting Started

Our team can advise on creative processes and show you the right tools to manage workflows. Request a free demo of Workamajig to see how our software can support your current operations, promote efficiency and profitability, and scale with you.