How to improve your design project management process

Creative design and project management don’t typically go hand in hand, but they do have to work together. While you won’t often have the same person performing both roles, a design project requires a solid structure, a clear scope, and strong communication to be successful. In other words, you can have the best designers in the world, but if you don’t have a tried-and-tested design project management process in place, you won’t deliver much at all. 

This concise guide to design project management will help you keep things on track, give you tips to improve the process, and show you how software like Jotform can help. 

The design project management process and why it’s important

The design project management process will probably look relatively similar whether you’re working in an in-house marketing department or at an agency. It normally goes something like this:

1. Receive brief from the client or stakeholder
2. Agree on the scope of work
3. Prototype the design
4. Review the design with clients
5. Make any necessary adjustments and review again
6. Publish the work

Following a structure like this — and having someone manage the process effectively — is incredibly important. 

“Project managers ensure projects are delivered on time and that objectives are completed in an effective and affordable way,” explains Serena Down, a user experience (UX) researcher at UX research and design firm Blink. “Good project managers facilitate communication between the project team and the client to set goals and expectations. This allows UX researchers, designers, and strategists to focus on the right problem at the right time, without losing sight of the bigger picture.”

3 tips to improve your design project management

Okay, so you know why it’s crucial. Where do you start with your own design project management process?

1. Be clear on scope

The first step of the design project management process — receiving and scoping out the brief — is arguably the most important. Not only do you need to be clear on exactly what the client or stakeholder wants, but you also need to set firm boundaries to avoid scope creep later down the line.

Scope creep happens when expectations or deliverables change in the middle of the project and move so far away from the initial agreement that it becomes impossible to deliver work. By clarifying expectations, deliverables, and the iterative process of your project, you can make sure your team and the client are on the same page. If things change, you’ll need to revisit this stage during the project and make sure both parties are in agreement before continuing with the design. 

If you want to get ahead of things, you can even create a scope risk assessment at the start of a project, writes the team at workflow platform Monday. “Think about all the things that may cause scope creep and create strategies to prevent these risks from blossoming,” they advise. 

2. Keep everything in one place

There are a lot of moving parts in large design projects, and many different files in particular. If your teams are large, distributed, or work closely with clients, it’s key to make sure you store everything in one place — from the brief to your designs.

Solutions like Dropbox and Google Drive are great ways to store and make design assets accessible to team members and stakeholders, writes Ryan Crosbie, a VP of marketing at Extracker and former director of product at Redbooth. Make sure you keep those folders organized, too. Crosbie recommends that teams “Organize folders by client, project, or date, and maintain that consistency over time.” 

It’s a good idea to keep all file versions clearly identifiable as well. The last thing you want is for one designer to use an outdated version when making edits or templating a new design.  

3. Use software

The design project management process is hard enough at the best of times, so why make things more difficult than you need to? You can use software tools throughout the process to improve communication, automate workflows, and better manage resources.

Take Jotform, for instance. You can use it to make the process more effective in several ways: 

• Online forms are a great way to receive project orders from clients or additional design requests in the middle of a project. 
• All the information you capture with these forms can automatically populate a Jotform table to track design requests. This is another way to keep all information accessible in the same place, just like storing your files in the same cloud storage platform. 
• If design requests require additional approval, Jotform has a range of workflow templates that can automate that process too. 

For more hands-on task management, Jotform Boards is a useful addition. It turns form submissions into trackable tasks on a kanban-style board, making it easy to organize client requests, assign work, and keep the entire team aligned. With customizable layouts and collaboration features, it’s a simple way to visualize workflows and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

A great design project management process will keep even the most extensive and convoluted briefs on track and help your team deliver exceptional work. By being strict when it comes to managing scope, keeping files organized, and using software where possible, you can keep your project management process as strong as your team’s design skills. 

Photo by Jo Szczepanska on Unsplash