Project management in art
Several years ago when I was studying for a short period at BU, I wrote a few articles on project management for a course, and I think that this one is worth sharing here.
This week´s video was very interesting because professor Warburton showed us that Project Management is not exclusive for big companies or corporate projects, by interviewing a theater director. It was interesting that Ed didn´t have any context of the content of the interview, at the beginning it might seemed improvised, but as the interview went on, I could realize the relation with the Accidental Project Manager topic.
Ed´s case is very similar to my professional experience growing as a graphic designer; I studied a bachelor’s degree on Arts and it is always interesting to try to understand the point of view of an artist, whether it´s a performer, painter or musician, the creative process is always seen as an inspirational moment, rather than a management process.
When I started to work as a graphic designer, it was hard for me to know how to start a project, for example a logotype or a brochure design. I used to approach this activity in a disorganized way, creating drafts at the beginning of the project and having a fuzzy idea of what I wanted for the final design; I never put too much thought on how I used to approach the process of creating any particular piece, I just did it.
By this time I didn´t know I was developing projects, but it´s was clear that I was involved into projects since art school; all artists creates projects during their entire career, because every piece of art is different from the other pieces, whether it´s a play, a design, a musical piece, a sculpture, a story, all of them are projects. I started to think about projects when I set up my first design studio and I realized I needed order with my clients, so management became more important. My first approach with project management was in branding, when creating complex brand guidelines and I needed a structured process to approach diverse brands.
Artists don´t generally get involved in project management because this structured process could decrease originality, inspiration and freedom, therefore it´s difficult to find any art project management oriented process; it is interesting the last comment of Ed when he says that he lives to be an artist, not a manager, but in the end, he also manages processes, the ones that form his creative ideas: “…creativity needs some type of structure or system to give it form and to encourage its development“ (Linkner, 2011, p. 20).
Project management in art should not only be related to the activities related to management such as budget and schedule, but the creative process itself, because creative thought is structured and we could achieve many incredible things by applying the proper processes to generate more original ideas, after all, an art piece is a result of a thought process:
“What most businesses and individuals lack isn’t raw creative talent. What they lack is a system to unleash it. Even organizations who have systems for nearly every aspect of their business…have no system for developing and managing creativity. The most important thing a company can do is thus left to happen by chance. Managers take creativity for granted, yet wonder why they are not achieving growth and success” (Linkner, 2011, p. 21).
As a follow up, it would be interesting to explore the question, does the Project Management process increases the rate of success of artistic endeavors? (i.e. the production of a big Hollywood Movie, the touring schedule of Le Cirque du Soleil, an international singer music tour).
Reference
Linkner, J. (2011). Disciplined dreaming: a proven system to drive breakthrough creativity. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, USA.