IB Woman
Issue No. 40 - April/ /
Creating clarity from chaos
by Penelope Herbert
For creative people, the words Project Management can send a constricting shiver down their artistic spine.
Anything that involves logic and process can’t be imaginative, right? Wrong, according to KneeDeep Managing Director, Henrietta Child.
“Structure can, in fact, greatly help creativity because it forms clarity of priorities,” Henrietta explains.
“I have seen this work in creative digital content companies where project management principles have enhanced the creative process by freeing up time that was inhibited by a lack of defined order.”
Henrietta says many companies don’t think project management tools can help their business because they don’t perceive they have ‘projects’, just a business direction with no defined end.
While project management relates to activities with a defined beginning and end, the principles create focus and keep things in order as well as being used for specific initiatives.
“All businesses are different,” says Henrietta, “but there is a general assumption among many that if they just prioritise activities then they’ll be OK.
“This is not correct because things tend to fall behind and then fall off the back.”
Lack of structure is, says Henrietta, like hosting an afternoon tea with no-one knowing what they are supposed to be doing. All the guests have assembled but the staff are in the kitchen and no-one knows who is boiling the water, no-one is filling the sugar bowl or milk jug, the cake hasn’t been ordered and the host thought sandwiches were being served anyway.
So everyone’s trying to boil water and no-one is attending to anything else.
“That’s a good analogy because it’s a situation people understand. They can see how ridiculous it is,” says Henrietta.
“Yet on a larger scale they are allowing the same thing to happen to their business. Usually, a company will have more proje...
