Creative Processes—Who Owns What in Your Organization?
Wednesday, 25 April 2007 @ 11:36Recently, a superior found some minor errors in some large printed guides that I had created for our companies user conferences. The edits were incorrect days, dates or times, on ancillary pages in the guide. They were oversight by me and the communications team due to short turn around times, and an immense workload.
Here is my question: In your organization, who owns the content? When you receive content for a large project, do you always receive the final content or are you often getting partial content in Word documents, partial updates in emails, and lots, and lots of hand written edits?
I have been told recently that I always must own content that should never be wrong (times, dates and locations). Is that how it is in other organizations (particularly in house creative teams). Do you have someone on your teams that reviews the final content for those sorts of things, or should that be left to the designer? What processes do you have in place to avoid such errors?
I think it very unwise for your organization to put the responsibility of content accuracy on your shoulders. People should never proof their own work. Whether you are writing copy, designing a brochure, or writing code and whether you conceived the project or are only producing it, once you become involved in and spend time with a project you become tainted and cannot be an accurate source for evaluating it’s accuracy. After staring at something for days and days you can look directly at things such as typographical errors or blatant usability issues and not see them.
At every organization that I have worked, I have established and required a very strict proofing system that requires the explicit approval of final proofs by the business owner (he whom has final say for the project, not the president of the company). Some times I require this as a physical signature on a hard copy of the artwork and other times I have considered a response to an emailed URL sufficient, but either way I have always filed the approval with the proof and other records before releasing any artwork to be published. Strict adherence to a policy such as this communicates to the client or business owner the importance of having the requirements and content ready before the project begins, returning changes and approvals in a timely fashion, and that the accuracy of the of the content in the final product is their responsibility. If they do not want this responsibility then there is no problem with them assigning it to someone else; but it should not be you.
I do require all of the requirements and content to be delivered before a project is begun, but there are always requirement changes and copy edits. Also, even in a scenario where you might receive absolute assurance that it was final and error proof and no edits were made after delivery, the format that it is implemented into never matches the format that it was approved in and it therefore can no longer be trusted as accurate. The point is not to provide a scapegoat for the designer; it is to protect all parties envolved and especially as a courtesy to the client. With adhoc changes along the way, content and requirements coming from multiple sources, and the artist combining them in a product that may be unexpected, the business owner should be eager awaiting the responsibility of approving the effectiveness and accuracy of the project’s execution.
Thanks Wade. I need to design an internal process to save my hide. I need to get several outside people involved, and give others ownership for final approvals. I’ll let you know what I come up with. I’d like to hear some more examples of how others handle these processes. I work as the sole print designer in a fairly large company and I wear many hats (designer, art director, project manager and sometimes even copywriter) so I am in a unique position.
Hey Wade, do you happen to have a PDF example of the forms you use to track such approvals?
Wade I agree with you content errors should not be placed on designers. Rather clients and people trained in editing should manage and verify such things. Sadly sometimes designers are held liable by clients and employeers despite processes that are ment to put responisbility for content on the client. Signed proofs and records reduce the designers responsibility for content but don’t seem to always remove it. I think the best case is to have an editor that is held responsible to review every piece before it is published. The editor as well as the client would sign off on pieces and be held accountable for errors.
I agree Brandon, but that is often the case. I am trying to design an internal process that will alleviate this issue. We’ll see how it works!
I am not using these currently as we are now using @task, but here are some forms that I created for progect management: physical media, digital media, and web interface. I have a few more in my archives at home from previous shops that I will try and dig up later.
@task looks interesting, but do you really need something that developed for a small team?
What if your ‘team’ consists of 2 or 3 people?
No, it would be massive overkill for a team of two, if it really only were two. The point of @task however (and most project management systems) is that it connects and coordinates entire corporations. Their customers employ teams in the thousands and often in varying locations. Coordinating between a creative department is easy; it’s managing projects across departments that will make or break you. Your immediate group may only be a team of two, but imagine the power of having all business owners, project managers, engineers, salesman, marketing personel, copy writeres, finance, human resources, designers, information technology staff, and executives monitoring, working from, and communicating through the same globally prioritized system.
In theory I think that is great. But I don’t ever see that happening here. :)