Creative ops and creative project management are the Benson and Stabler of creative teams: forces to be reckoned with on their own, but better when they work together.
But make no mistake. Creative operations isn’t the same animal as creative project management — each has a distinct objective and requires a specific skillset. Creative ops focuses on the things that make projects tick on the back end, while creative project management deals primarily with the day-to-day aspects of getting things done.
Of course, there’s some overlap between the two — and they’ll have a greater impact on your quality when they work alongside each other.
When creative teams understand the nuances of these two roles, they work better together and produce more exceptional work.
What we'll cover
Table of contents
What is creative operations?
Creative operations, or creative ops, emerged as a way to connect the people, methodologies, and tools involved in the creative process.
With steeper competition in the market, creative teams now face greater demands that often take them away from actually creating. In fact, on average, they’re spending two days every week on non-creative work.
Creative ops synchronizes all the moving pieces so teams can thrive under pressure and deliver their best work. Some common job titles on a creative operations team include:
- Head of Creative Operations
- Creative Operations Director / Manager / Coordinator
- Traffic Manager
- Creative Director (we see Creative Directors filling in as a substitute creative operations manager in the absence of one)
- Creative Project Manager
A creative team might include copywriters, designers, strategists, and social media specialists. When immersed in creative work, these team members often don’t have time to analyze how work is getting done or chase after efficiencies.
Even project managers have their hands tied. They’re caught up in the minutiae of projects and keeping things on track.
Creative teams need someone who can step back from projects and see the big-picture creative process. That’s where creative ops comes in.
What does creative ops involve?
Creative ops responsibilities revolve around these key areas:
- Workflow optimization: Improving the processes and workflows creative teams use to produce top-quality work, often by developing best practices or implementing project management tools
- Resource management: Ensuring there are enough resources and team members to cover all of the in-progress and upcoming projects
- Quality control: Establishing and enforcing procedures to make sure creative assets meet quality, brand, and compliance requirements
- Collaboration and communication: Facilitating effective communication within the creative team and across departments
- Technology implementation: Selecting and integrating tools to support the creative process and ease pain points
What is creative project management?
Creative project management is the framework that helps creative teams get their work done. Since the creative process is more organic than, say, the software development process, it needs its own management system.
A creative project manager focuses on the individual projects within an organization. Creatives often work best in an environment where they have the space and flexibility to ideate. But without team members to juggle project planning and execution, important details can get missed, jeopardizing the project timeline.
With a creative project manager to keep projects moving, creative teams can focus their energy on producing and fulfilling requests.
What does creative project management involve?
Creative project managers typically focus on:
- Project planning and scheduling: Breaking down creative projects into tasks, setting timelines, and allocating resources
- Budget management: Controlling costs during the execution phase and making sure they don’t exceed the planned budget
- Milestone tracking: Ensuring creative teams are hitting key checkpoints and tracking progress to keep the project on schedule
- Risk management: Identifying potential issues or bottlenecks that could derail the creative process and developing strategies to overcome them
- Team coordination and communication: Encouraging open communication and collaboration among team members and stakeholders
Key differences between creative ops and creative project management
Creative ops and creative project management both support creative teams during projects, but here’s where the differences lie.
Scope of work
Creative operations oversees the entire creative process, while creative project management focuses on individual projects.
Let’s say a creative team is working on a campaign to launch a new product. A creative project manager works alongside the creative team. They collaborate with product owners to gather key information, set deadlines, and keep communication flowing between copywriters, graphic designers, and strategists.
Creative ops is more concerned with the high-level process than the individual project. They evaluate how the creative team works together and identify potential opportunities for improvement. For example, they might try out a new project management tool or tweak a process to streamline compliance.
Objectives
If you ask a creative project manager about their main goal, they’ll say it’s completing a project on time, within budget, and in line with requirements.
The creative ops manager would have a slightly different response. They spend their days improving efficiency and streamlining processes. Both functions contribute to a creative team’s success on a holistic level.
Roles and responsibilities
A creative project manager’s daily responsibilities revolve around projects. One minute, they might be creating a detailed project timeline for a new advertising campaign. The next, they might coordinate a feedback session between a designer and client or decision-maker.
The director of creative operations isn’t as connected to individual projects, but they know exactly how the creative machine runs. Their day-to-day might include revamping the creative approval process or developing a new intake process for all creative requests.
Tools and resources
Since they do different things in the organization, creative ops and creative project management rely on different tools.
For creative project managers, this includes:
- Task management tools
- Timeline and Gantt chart software
- Proofing tools
- Project-specific budgeting tools
For creative operations, it’s:
- Resource management systems
- Brand compliance tools
- Analytics platforms
- Creative request intake systems
Creative ops and creative project management team members often use tools like project management software, communication platforms, time-tracking software, and digital asset management (DAM) systems equally.
How creative ops and creative project management complement each other
The creative process is like a big puzzle. Creative ops and creative project management blend their unique skillsets to help the creative team assemble the puzzle. While it may seem like project managers and creative ops coordinators live in different worlds, their roles are complementary.
Enhancing efficiency and productivity
Even the most skilled project managers can’t lead successful projects if their creative department lacks the right infrastructure. The same applies to creative ops — can you imagine how many projects would get done if teams spent all day perfecting their process and ignoring tasks and milestones?
When creative ops and creative project management work together, you get the best of both worlds. Creative professionals have the project-specific resources they need and can produce high-quality work in an environment set up for success.
Resource optimization
Creative ops generally has a broad view of a team’s resources, staffing, and utilization. This is critical information creative project managers need to assign resources to specific projects based on needs and priorities.
Since they have a big-picture view of the creative department’s resources and budget, creative ops managers can identify the tools that fit the team’s needs. Project managers can then decide how the team will use those tools to manage day-to-day project tasks and communication.
Improved communication and collaboration
Creative teams rely on tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Figma, and Adobe Creative Cloud to communicate and collaborate on project tasks. While teams may have a creative workflow that helps them deliver projects, creative ops can help them leverage automations to take manual tasks off their plate.
When they identify gaps or roadblocks in the team’s current process, they can make recommendations to improve communication and collaboration. And project managers can better orchestrate their projects when equipped with the right tools and processes.
Consistent quality and standards
Quality benchmarks and standard operating procedures (SOPs) govern creative teams. Creative ops creates and documents these resources, including brand guidelines, design principles, content quality, and technical specifications. They’re also responsible for training creative teams and incorporating benchmarks and SOPs into tools and templates.
Once creative ops lays down the law, project managers make sure creative teams follow it. They align project timelines and resources to allow for quality checks.
They also set up regular checkpoints throughout the project lifecycle based on the creative ops guidelines. Even after a project is complete, project managers give creative ops feedback on the standards they’ve set so they can improve them over time.
Get more insights into optimizing and advancing your creative operations
The creative team is a collaborative unit where each member contributes to the organization’s shared goals. Copywriters align messaging with brand and campaign objectives, while designers bring the brand to life visually.
Meanwhile, creative operations establishes a solid foundation for project managers to streamline their work. Creative ops and creative project management form a cohesive partnership that drives the success of the creative team and organization.
But one of the biggest hurdles creative ops and creative project managers face is the review and approval process.
That’s why we created a helpful guide full of best practices for building a streamlined review and approval process with multiple departments and decision-makers!
