{"id":449,"date":"2014-02-27T17:55:24","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T14:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/?p=449"},"modified":"2014-02-27T17:55:24","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T14:55:24","slug":"why-production-people-make-kick-ass-project-managers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/why-production-people-make-kick-ass-project-managers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why production people make kick-ass project managers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are filmmakers (in the broadest sense of the word) just particularly pragmatic, or why do I get a sense that many of the issues discussed in project management research are basics 101 stuff for production people?<\/p>\n<p>As part of my current studies I just read an article from the MIT Sloan Management Review called &#8216;What Great Projects Have in Common&#8217; (online version <a href=\"http:\/\/sloanreview.mit.edu\/article\/what-great-projects-have-in-common\/\">here<\/a>). It struck me, that any decent film or TV show production has to tick all the seven boxes to succeed &#8211; and projects like that are completed daily around the world!<\/p>\n<p>The common factors according to the article are:<\/p>\n<p>1.) That the project involves a unique competitive advantage <em>(read: compelling plot and characters)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>2.) That it starts with a long period of project definition, including a\u00a0powerful vision, clear need and defining the best approach <em>(development, anyone?)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>3.) That what the authors call &#8216;great projects&#8217; also create a revolutionary project culture <em>(happens in most assembled-for-this-project-only productions)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>4.) That a &#8216;great project&#8217; needs a highly qualified project leader who is unconditionally supporteded by top management <em>(read: producer and director)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>5.) That &#8216;great projects&#8217; maximize use of existing knowledge <em>(animation productions re-using assets, plug-ins etc all the time)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>6.)\u00a0That project teams have fast problem-solving capability and the ability to adapt to changes <em>(any production team that does not fit this bill is dead in the water)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>7.) That a team of a\u00a0&#8216;great project&#8217; has a strong sense of partnership and pride <em>(even the smallest audiovisual productions are made by teams that take great pride in their handiwork. Which is exactly why I love this industry)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It all kind of reminded me of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/2013\/01\/steven-soderbergh-in-conversation.html\">this<\/a> Steven Soderbergh interview with Vulture, where he talks about how the US government should have given the job of handling the hurricane Katrina evacuations to a movie studio.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are filmmakers (in the broadest sense of the word) just particularly pragmatic, or why do I get a sense that many of the issues discussed in project management research are basics 101 stuff for production people? As part of my current studies I just read an article from the MIT Sloan Management Review called &#8216;What&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[10,52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nickdorra.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}