If you’re in charge of video production project management for your organization, you have a challenge ahead. To create a high quality video project, you need to manage competing priorities and personalities in your organization. You’ll need to work closely with a production team or third-party production company. Along the way, you’ll have to monitor the schedule as you make and follow a video plan.
This complicated task gets a lot easier when you know what to expect and plan ahead. To help you succeed, we drew on our years of video production experience and outlined 8 tips for video project management.
Video Production Project Management Is Unique
If you’ve served as a project manager in the past, you may know all about management systems and scheduling. But video production brings some unique factors to the table. Video production is a creative process and creativity is subjective. You may find that people invest emotionally in their creative contributions
All of that taken together means you may need to focus more on team members and how they’re working together. A good creative workflow invites everyone to contribute, but avoids bogging down with too many ideas.
Video production is also a technical process. It may involve experts in recording, animation, editing, and post-production. Production managers need to facilitate both the creative and the complex technical sides of the project. The tips we share here will help you keep both sides working toward the common goal.
8 Tips for Video Production Management
Project management software and tools can help you stay organized, but a successful project is people-focused. Here’s how to use project management to keep your video production team on track.
1. Identify the Stakeholders
A video project thrives when the right people are on the team. Before you build your project team, you need to decide who really has a stake in the project. The following questions will help you spot internal and external stakeholders:
- What groups within our organization will use this video and how will they use it?
- What is our target audience and who knows them best?
- Who has insight on the message this video is communicating?
Start reaching out to stakeholders as early as possible. You want to avoid having people come in part way through and disrupt the workflow. It can make sense to get ideas and thoughts from a broad group at first. Then you can narrow to a smaller working group to see the project through.
A working group is the team that helps you manage a video project and keeps the project focused. The ideal working group is small and understands the goals of the project.
2. Invite Executives to Contribute Early On
Ask executives to contribute while the project is still in the idea stages. It’s better to get them involved early so they don’t swoop in late with major changes that disrupt the plan. Changing a video late in the process can be time-consuming and costly. So, get input early and check in often to avoid surprises.
3. Select a Video Production Company
If you have an internal video production team, this step is easy. Otherwise, you’ll need to compare animation companies or live-action video producers to find one that meets your needs. Consider the following factors to help make your decision:
- your budget and their price point
- how their style fits your brand
- projected timeline
- their experience and portfolio
Reviewing a production company’s portfolio is the best way to tell whether they’re a good fit for your project. You can use a portfolio assessment tool to stay organized as you assess.
4. Get Your Working Group Aligned
Before the kickoff meeting with your video provider, meet with your working group to make a plan for the video. Here are some key questions to think about:
- What is the objective of the video?
- What message are we trying to convey?
- How will our organization use and distribute the video? This can help determine length, format, and audience.
- What video length is right for our audience and distribution plan?
- How do we want to include branding in the video? If you don’t have video branding guidelines, now is the time to formulate some.
- What video styles are likely to appeal to our audience and fit our brand? Gather reference examples to help people visualize different styles.
Discussing these questions will help everyone understand the goals and expectations for the project. A brainstorming session can also help you gather ideas that you can pass to your production partner.
4. Bring The Video Production Studio Into Meetings
Ideally, the production studio you’ve chosen has experts who know how to create videos like yours. If you bring them into the planning process early, they may offer ideas and insight you would have missed otherwise. When studio representatives can communicate directly with your stakeholders you avoid confusion.
5. Plan for Internal Reviews and Checkpoints
The review process can bog down an otherwise well-managed project. Plan ahead for any internal reviews that need to happen. This might include reviews by the legal team, branding team, marketing, or executives.
You might not think of these groups as video project stakeholders, but they do have power over your project. Avoid unexpected delays by letting them know that a project is coming. Build in their review time when you create a schedule.
6. Share the Production Schedule
Speaking of schedules, everyone on the working group should have a copy of the production schedule. Share it with stakeholders and reviewers as well. Consider whether you want to put meetings on the calendar to review certain deliverables. Even if most project-specific communication happens by email, virtual or in-person meetings can help avoid bottlenecks.
7. Make It Easy to Collect and Share Feedback
Choose a video review and markup tool that everyone can use to share feedback. When feedback comes in, consolidate it into a list. Then share that list with your working group to check that you’ve understood their notes accurately.
If you receive conflicting feedback, remember, it won’t resolve itself! Suggest a choice or compromise, and get acknowledgement from all stakeholders that they are happy with the resolution.
8. Identify Metrics of Success
Your job is not done when the video is complete. Check the completed project against the goals you set at the beginning. Then use those goals to identify key performance indicators for your video. Setting and tracking KPIs can help you calculate return on investment and improve your process next time.
Get Support on Video Production Project Management
The video creation company you choose to work with can be a valuable resource throughout the process. Remember to draw on their expertise as you work through the project. They have almost certainly helped brands overcome similar challenges in the past.
The video creation experts at IdeaRocket can help you plan and produce a video that pleases stakeholders and meets KPIs. Our proven production process results in quality video that launches your message into orbit. Contact us to learn more.
