Project Management for marketing & advertising

What Project Management Is All About

• The nature and scope of Project Management
• Corporate goals and the need for successful projects
• Project characteristics and managing a Marketing/Advertising Project
• Prioritising of projects and identifying key success factors.
• The importance of speed to market, innovative disruption, enhanced brand engagement and building relationships in Marketing

The Project Management Process

• There are 5 steps to follow in the process of planning and executing a project. To do this successfully one has to understand the value chain and project life cycle.
• Initiating and defining the project
• State the scope and main deliverables
• Foresee and manage possible changes
• Identify the tasks, responsibilities and roles of people and suppliers
• The value chain and project life cycle
• The communications and reporting plan
• Schedule the project and deal with all the key issues
• Practical: Planning a new product from ideation stage to launch, including planning an ad campaign

Scheduling a Marketing/Advertising Project 

• Scheduling has to do with determining what has to be done, by whom, how and when. Schedule deviation is one of the most important factors leading to failure
• Identifying all the steps in the value chain
• Trading off cost and time
• Scheduling the project in logical steps
• Identifying mandatory, discretionary and external dependencies
• Allocating responsibilities
• Identifying measure points/milestones
• Practical: How to manage the value chain of selling a product

Ensuring Quality Management, Costs and Risk

• Perception of quality: by the marketer/ad agency vs the consumer. Quality activities and how to plan for quality. Managing all aspects relating to cost to ensure the desired quality. Identifying and managing all the risk factors
• The meaning and importance of quality
• Meeting specifications
• Quality policies, standards, assurance, audit and control
• How to plan and schedule quality activities
• The project budget
• Identifying, approving and controlling costs
• Identifying, analysing and managing all the risk factors
• Practical: Typical mistakes to be avoided and how to deal with it should things go wrong.

Managing human resources and suppliers

• Identifying a project leader
• Compiling the project team (internal and external) and managing them and their performance
• How to build and manage a high performance team
• Motivation, dealing with controllable and uncontrollable blockages, stress and conflict
• Skills needed to manage change and engage stakeholders effectively
• Practical: Challenging your team to identify what they need to do, how to do it better and equipping them with the resources to be successful.

The Importance of Effective Communication, Reporting and Control in Managing Projects

The success of any Marketing or Advertising project is dependent on what seems so simple: communication. However, good communication is often neglected as it is seen as unnecessary, too time consuming or costly. The challenge is to develop and maintain efficient communications and reporting, internally and with external suppliers and contractors.

• The importance of good communication
• Types of communication
• Communication channels and the flow of information
• Communication helpers and blockers
• The communication plan and project reports required
• Project control and steps in the control process
• Deviations and the revision plan
• Practical: Managing communication to avoid problems