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Newsletter 11, February 1996

Print Production Management

Using project management to design and print — the service which gives you remote control.

As the number of communications media available continues to grow, potential users can find the choices and increasing complexity somewhat daunting. Furthermore, there is a natural reservation about how much personal time must be committed to achieve the desired results.

In this article, I explain how you can use the project management service to achieve your design and printing projects.

As part of Learning Support Services’ ongoing development, 1996 sees the introduction of a Design and Print Project Management Service — designed to offer the maximum professionalism in the running of the University’s design and print service.

Evolved in direct response to the growing complexity of media choices available and the increasingly sophisticated needs of our staff clients, the service is intended to reflect “best practice” in the communications industry and help address the rapidly growing volume of material being prepared each year.

In line with external agencies, the intention is to exploit to the maximum our increasingly-powerful production technology and software to provide a more client-focused one-stop design and print service.

Now, “project management” may sound like something beloved of trans-atlantic rocket scientists, but in the context of design and print it is simply about identifying who/where/when/how and at what cost, then using this information to construct a formal plan which, after client approval, becomes the tool used to manage the project on the client’s behalf.

The system is flexible enough to cope with, and indeed is designed to overcome, the pressures arising from resource and budget constraints, but offers the best results when used as part of a strategic production protocol.

The major benefits of such an approach for you, the client, are:

• Substantial reduction in the time you must allocate for running the project.
• Pre-allocated resources to ensure continuity.
• Maximum value for the available budget.
• Effective quality control at every stage.
• A single point of contact throughout the life of the project.

So how does this approach differ from current practice and what must you do to secure such benefits?

The flow diagram (below) illustrates the sequence of events involved in the typical brochure project using a project management approach:

Confident of the system, the client calls in Media and Educational Development Services at the very beginning, utilizing our expertise to identify the best kind of document to answer their objectives. MEDS then works with the client to write the project brief, and it is against this brief that the initial costings and schedules are created. Client approval of these then results in a draft project plan which enumerates the people involved, the timing of their contribution, and their responsibilities. Using this plan, MEDS assumes responsibility for managing the project, ensuring that the previously-identified resources are available as required to adhere to the schedule. Design concepts follow, and these will have been prepared with regard to the earlier outline costings. However, upon approval a further quotation may be provided to take any changes into account. Acceptance of the creative concept is followed by detailed design work and the commissioning of any illustration requirements. As at every stage, client approval is required prior to the completion of finished artwork, at which point the MEDS project manager will oversee the transfer to the printer.

All the print production processes are subject to MEDS quality control, and client involvement at this stage can be minimal.

As the project management service develops during 1996, it is intended that delivery will be followed by a post-project report to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and its implementation.

MEDS also proposes to work with you in the future to analyse the degree to which the document succeeded in securing your objectives.

Throughout all of the project stages, a pre-agreed sequence of progress reports and quality control checks will be provided to ensure that the client retains control through the project manager whilst being able to avoid the necessity for hands-on management.

Such an approach differs from previous practice in focusing upon the front-end of the process, thereby providing a design and print consultancy service which offers our clients the most “added value”.

Requiring no additional effort on your part except the decision to retain the project-management service at the commencement of the project, the system is equally effective whether the project is to be produced internally by MEDS, involves a range of other LSS services, or makes use of expensive external specialists. The expertise behind the service has been proven over many years, with a record of success in extracting maximum value for money from design consultants, advertising/PR agencies and printers.

Full details and specimen project plans are available from me, Print Production Manager in Media and Educational Development Services, on extn 3379.