Creative Industries

Before we get into any of the specific issues, it might be helpful to define the industry of today’s topic, as it’s perhaps a little broader than some of the other industries we’ve talked about. When we talk about creative industries, we mean any given work application that might involve a degree of taste and subjectivity. This might mean a photographer operating as a sole trader, it could mean a graphic artist working at an advertising agency, or it could mean a producer working on a film set. In any of these endeavours, not only are we managing workload and resource management, but also the hefty burden of aligning with your clients’ tastes. ProWorkflow’s Nexus can’t quite handle all of that, but it can help! Here’s how:

Scope Creep and Uncontrolled Revisions

• Problem: Clients or producers frequently request changes outside the agreed scope.
• Cause: Lack of clear contracts, weak change-control processes.
• Impact: Overwork, blown budgets, demoralised creative teams.

Inevitably, your client won’t want to go with your first draft. The last thing you want to be caught with is a client who always needs one last thing tweaked before they’re happy with it. This is why revisions are so important, specifically, limiting the number of available revisions. Now while this is more relevant to your contract & business practices than it is to your project management system, ProWorkflow’s Nexus tool can make managing these revisions much easier, specifically managing expectations around revisions.

Our current clients have found best practice in planning their projects and including the maximum number of revisions out the gate. Because your client can potentially see the full project timeline, they’ll be immediately aware of not only how many revisions are available, but how much longer each revision will extend their timeline by. This way, your clients know exactly how their tweaks are going to impact their bottom line and release schedule, which can result in a bit more restraint with making requests.

Tight Deadlines and Last-Minute Changes

• Problem: Creative projects often run on accelerated timelines (e.g., campaigns tied to product launches or film festival deadlines).
• Cause: Market pressures, client demands, poor planning upstream.
• Impact: Burnout, quality compromises, missed opportunities.

Close deadlines are a classic issue when it comes to creative productions. Where some other industries might be able to flex their schedules in the worst case scenarios, creative industries are often beholden to broader campaigns and other inconveniences that prevent any shifts in schedule. While Nexus can’t save you from external pressures as soon as they show up, it can help you prepare for last minute changes and tight deadlines earlier in the process. By having a full timeline ready to go (complete with a critical path), you’ll know exactly where you can afford to spend an extra day and where you can’t. You’ll also immediately know what specifically a lag might do to your project. All the while, we will keep track of projections and comparative statistics so you can see at-a-glance how you are tracking as compared the original timeline.

Team and Talent Coordination

• Problem: Projects bring together diverse professionals (designers, writers, directors, actors, editors, photographers, freelancers).
• Cause: Reliance on contractors/freelancers, remote and distributed teams.
• Impact: Miscommunication, scheduling conflicts, inconsistent quality.

Accountability and transparency can become difficult when dealing with so many teams at once. There are a multitude of creative disciplines that may be involved in any given production, and then we also need to reconcile this with time constraints, and client and corporate interests. Nexus helps here by outlining every step of your process, keeping track of who specifically is responsible for what, and who you need to talk to should there be a delay/anything amiss. You can also centralise communications to the tool, so any conversation that is pertinent to a given task can be seen by anyone who has any involvement to that task. While coordination may still be difficult, with a complete information set any given project will flow much more smoothly.

Resource and Budget Constraints

• Problem: Creative projects often exceed budget due to underestimated complexity.
• Cause: Poor forecasting, unanticipated creative or technical needs (e.g., reshoots, extra design assets).
• Impact: Profitability loss, strained client relationships.

Not only does Nexus keep track of how long everything is taking, when its happening and whose doing, but also how much the activity costs. Additionally, if the activity is revenue generating in the sense that you’re charging for time, we can cater to that also. This is one of Nexus’ main advantages: whether you charge by time or on a fixed cost + additionals basis, we can cover any scenario. You can then go through each activity and see how much the project has cost in terms of what you’re paying staff to complete this skilled work. You can then measure any delays or additional hours against your predetermined revenue to see how you’re tracking and project your future costs.

Creative industries require action across many different places, skillsets and people, and managing it all can get tough sometimes! With Nexus, we put the information in your hands so you can make the best decision at any given fork in the road. We can also directly help you set up your system with our training staff, just reach out and tell us what you need!