Bottlenecks?

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 11, 2008 at 11:42am

Well ... to jump start my own discussion, project management is a difficult arena we face which I would actually classify as a bottleneck. It's difficult to maintain a decent handle on project status' without bogging down our workflow with too much red tape. I hate systems that require 5 minutes of project management for every 2 minutes of work.

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Permalink Reply by Liz Resko on September 12, 2008 at 12:25pm

As the Production Manager I find the worst bottleneck is in my design area, specifically a designer who re-designs and underestimates the amount of time needed to complete tasks.


Microsoft Project is a useful tool in keeping my projects organized and on time, now if I can only light a fire under my graphic designer ....

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 12, 2008 at 1:31pm

Thanks for the input! We've run into the same problems before. This is our magic trick for handling that:

Designer's estimated time x 1.5 = more realistic projection

But the formula only works if don't tell the creative team that you've penciled in more time =) !

I'll have to check out Mircosoft Project, I haven't explored their options.

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Permalink Reply by David Willson on September 12, 2008 at 2:02pm

I'm an old timer (God I hate saying that!). I actually used to work with wax, glue, Amberlith and mechanical art boards. Physical production required that you thoroughly think through a design before beginning.

Once I started working digitally, it is amazing how quickly I lost that ethic and began throwing pages together on the fly, hoping that they would come together quickly. I can't tell you how many times I've consciously reminded myself to draw thumbnails, etc. because I was continually painting myself in a corner and rethinking what I was doing.

Finally, I settled on this simple method. I have showed it to designers who caused similar problems in my operations. Some got it, some didn't. Here's what I showed them:

Make you best photo and illustration selections based on reading the article thoroughly. Break out any copy that makes sense as a sidebar, quotes, headlines, etc. Zoom out on your layout to 25 or 30 percent, where body type is all greeked, and do the entire layout in thumbnail.

In this mode, you will be able to select headline fonts, position heads and pull quotes, size photos, illustrations, graphics and sidebars and position them in the layout. Having read the article, you don't need to read the text as you go to know that a certain image lands at the top of page 3. Make sure to leave room for photo captions.

You'd be surprised how far you can take a layout very quickly when working small like this — even to fitting the copy so that there is minimal overflow. Once you are convinced that the layout is 90 percent there, then you can zoom in and tweak it. The method really sped up my work.

Also, it's been my experience that a really well thought out grid eliminates a lot of fiddling around. It's almost a necessity when using my thumbnail method, above.

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 12, 2008 at 2:13pm

That's an interesting method. We have a similar concept dialed into our early design stages, but it's definitely not quite as methodical. We simply encourage our team to concentrate on design from a "bird's eye view" and once elements are generally fitting in areas that make sense and seem to work, then start nailing down the actual design and implementing whatever branding guide rules or publication design guidelines are in place for that particular publication.

I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times I've had to stress the importance of planning out key element placements prior to actual design with our team. Too many times, our designer's will waste crucial upfront time finessing a small piece of the puzzle and lose site of the overall article and project.

And definitely having a strong grid structure to begin with helps out!

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Permalink Reply by David Willson on September 12, 2008 at 2:21pm

"waste crucial upfront time finessing a small piece of the puzzle and lose site of the overall "

It's the clash between digital technology and the human brain. If you think about it, we all increasingly suffer from this in myriad aspects of our lives now. I guess we all need to step out of our skins and take a birdseye view from time to time.

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Permalink Reply by David Cardillo on September 24, 2008 at 5:01pm

The biggest bottleneck? Easily everyone thinking their particular input can wait until the end of the day/production cycle. Theirs is just one story, after all, but they fail to realize that there are a dozen or more people just like them who're taking just as much time.

Between editors who hear, "this is due Tuesday," and hand in their changes on their way home, and designers who figure they can continue to tweak until EOD Friday, because press doesn't start rolling until Sat. afternoon, we've had many a pizza party in the conference room after hours, trying to meet deadlines.

We're all adults, we should all be responsible enough to meet our due dates. Planning for any issue starts well in advance - 3 months or more - and everyone is apprised of everyone's due dates, so there's no excuse for not managing your own workflow.

The problems arise as we near the end of the cycle, as everyone tries to make whatever they're working on "perfect." This ends up having the exact opposite effect: we're so crushed at the end of the cycle that we stop looking at things carefully, letting a lot of things go that we would have taken the time to noodle, had we more time.

Everyone I work with is tired of hearing my Yeats analogy: William Butler Yeats used to rewrite his poems as they were being republished. Literary critics and purists were appalled. "How can you change what's already been printed?" they'd ask. "I feel differently now," he'd answer.

People will continue to make changes as long as they're allowed to do so. Give people two extra weeks to get anything done, and they'll take two more weeks to hand it in.

We've tried giving everyone dummy press dates, but the real dates eventually come out (and there are other sources of the real dates - get caught lying once and they'll never follow your dates again).

Unfortunately, at least in my case, short of behavioral modification therapy, there's no way I can force someone to give me layouts earlier, not when they've asked to hold presses to make changes. No amount of reasoning, "I need this the week before press so it can circulate through edit, we can make proofs, and make revisions and ensure there's nothing wrong with it before then," is going to dissuade someone for whom stopping a running press to make an art revision is inconsequential.

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 24, 2008 at 5:11pm

Ha! A client pointed out several years ago:

"Josh... it doesn't matter if you can do the job in a day. If I give you 2 weeks, you're going to use every last minute of it!"

But it's not quite the same as your scenario. We're a third-party company, so if someone gives me 2 extra weeks on a one-day job ... well ... Honestly, I'm probably gonna' wait 1 week and 6 days before starting!

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Permalink Reply by Darrin K. on October 24, 2008 at 10:23am

Since the president of our company is reluctant to purchase any kind of project management software, everything is routed by hand without any kind of tracking. We operate around a central Excel scheduling document that lists all deadlines and resources. Information often becomes quickly outdated as client, printing and distribution dates shift, and overworked account folks do not update the sheet. This operational challenge adds chaos to the already cumbersome process of revisions from the president, operations manager, editorial director, AEs, myself, and of course the client. However, this being said, our main bottleneck are disorganized and unruly clients who do not follow schedules and expect us to make up the time deficit. This puts enormous pressure on myself and the art department as we become NASCAR Cirque De Soleil performers to make deadlines and finish publications in half the time.

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