Creative Project Manager - Responsibilities | Skills Explained

A creative project manager is a person who plays a professional role when managing creative projects with project stakeholders, clients, and organization management. So, in this article, we’ll discuss the responsibilities and skills of a creative project manager.

Who Is a Creative Project Manager?

A creative project manager is a person who plays a professional role when managing creative projects with project stakeholders, clients, and organization management. Typically, the creative project team comprises graphic designers, copywriters, UX designers, content creators, videographers, photographers, and more. However, you’re responsible for leading creative projects or dealing with a creative element as a creative project manager.

A creative project manager’s responsibilities can be divided into three areas as follows,

Communicating – includes sharing information around updates, handoffs, and feedback between the creative team and the client.
Planning and organizing – includes leading clients and creatives through project planning, planning budgets, and monitoring the scope of work.
Monitoring progress – includes managing the project schedule, workloads, and team to keep things on track.

When working as a creative project manager, you must have motivation, idealism, and high communication skills because those skills will help you build trust and strong relationships with the team.

Creative project managers differ in some ways from traditional project managers, but they share much in common. For example, they handle their projects and teams with project management software such as Asana, Monday.com, Trello, and ProjectManager. With project management software, they can empower their teams to plan, manage, and track their work in real time and keep everyone on the same page.

What Are the Key Responsibilities of a Creative Project Manager?

The following are some responsibilities of a creative project manager. But it’s not different from what a traditional project manager does because every project has the same processes, with a few variations, though the deliverables are different.

Managing client relationships

As a creative project manager, you’re responsible for managing your clients. Typically, every project has a client or stakeholder who is invested in the project. Therefore, you must manage them and build strong communication to ensure the project’s success. For example, scheduling regular status updates and providing them with project metrics to show that the project is progressing as planned.

Creating the project scope

Defining the project scope is another crucial responsibility because it creates the boundaries by which the project will operate and is critical for the team and stakeholders to understand the project. For example, the project scope defines the project deadlines, goals, objectives, and deliverables.

Defining a project timeline

The project schedule defines the duration of each project task, milestones, and deliverables. Furthermore, the project timeline organizes all the project tasks or activities to ensure they have enough resources to execute them and are completed on time.

Related: Benefits of completing project on time

Allocating project resources

Project resources are crucial assets in any project. Therefore, as a creative project manager, you’re responsible for allocating project resources accurately because you need them to execute the project tasks, from the team to any material, equipment, or raw materials they need.

Estimating project costs

As a creative project manager, you’re responsible for forecasting all the project costs, before the project starts. To estimate project costs accurately you can use work breakdown structure (WBS) to identify needed information.

Defining a project budget

After estimating project costs, you’re responsible for defining a project budget. Typically, the project budget has to be approved by the project owner, client, stakeholder, or another appropriate person. Then, you can use your project budget when you execute the project to ensure your actual costs align with the budget.

Writing the project creative briefs

As a creative project manager, you’re responsible for writing the project creative briefs. The creative brief is a document that helps you outline the approach and deliverables for the project. However, these documents are commonly found in marketing and advertising campaigns.

Leading creative workshop

Leading creative workshops will help you build a supportive environment to share new ideas openly with your creative project team. It can be a place to explore new ideas, choose the best ones, and build on them.

Ensuring project quality

As a creative project manager, you must produce deliverables on time and within budget to ensure the project’s success. But if they don’t meet quality expectations, then it will fail. As such, quality assurance measures must be implemented to ensure that the deliverables meet quality standards.

Promoting team collaboration

Promoting team collaboration is a crucial aspect of the project’s success. Therefore, creative project managers should communicate clearly with the team members, highlight their strengths, encourage creativity, keep conversations open, and use team-building exercises.

Top Skills Needed to Become a Creative Project Manager

To become a creative project manager, you should have the skills to lead a team that completes creative marketing projects, video content, advertising material, website designs, and more. However, these skills differ from standard project manager skills because they include creative skills such as visual design, writing skills, organization, communication, and innovation.

As a creative project manager, you should use your skills depending on the size of the team and the type of projects they create. However, here are the top seven skills needed to become a creative project manager.

Communication – As a creative project manager, you must continue effective communication with a team of marketing professionals, engineers, and graphic designers to ensure each member has the information and resources they need. Having communication skills will help you understand your team members’ needs effectively. For example, you can lead a meeting at the beginning of the project to introduce everyone and explain the project’s goals, objectives, and timeline. On the other hand, you can conduct individual meetings with your team members to check on their progress during the project. However, you can use your communication skills to settle the dispute and encourage your team members.

Time management – To become a creative project manager, you should have time management skills to keep the project on schedule. On the other hand, it will help you ensure that your project stays within budget. For example, creative project managers use their time management skills to divide the project into different phases and provide a timeline for stakeholders to complete their tasks or activities.

Organization – Creative projects often include many resources to complete tasks or activities. As a creative project manager, you can use your organizational skills to make a project that’s easy for your team members to follow. So, you can use project management software to collect resources and put them in folders for team members to access when needed. On the other hand, these skills will help you determine how much time your project might take and how many team members it might require. Then, you can request an accurate budget from the organization’s client or appropriate stakeholder.

Visual design skills – As a creative project manager, you might not perform the graphic design tasks required by a creative project. However, you should manage graphic designers, layout artists, and animators during the project. For example, knowing the organization’s brand elements, such as specific fonts and approved logos, can help you collaborate with relevant people and evaluate their work.

Writing skills – To become a creative project manager, you may have writing skills, such as website content, marketing slogans, and brochure copy. So, having better writing skills will help creative project managers evaluate team members’ writing tasks and complete drafts for accuracy and tone.

Technical skills – As a creative project manager, you might use types of software platforms in your work, depending on your industry. Typically, many creative project managers use tasks management software, which helps you to assign due dates to team members. Furthermore, these platforms often feature online storage space, where creative team members can attach assigned files, copy drafts, and other content.

Industry knowledge – Having this knowledge will help you conduct research to learn about your client’s industries to improve your projects and ensure the success of your project.

Tips for Improving Creative Project Manager Skills

Here are some tips for improving and developing your creative project manager skills.

Education

Many creative project managers may come from a range of higher educational backgrounds, so many of them have a degree in marketing or a creative field, such as graphic design or writing for advertisements. Accordingly, students might learn about marketing and creative projects through internships or other educational experiences.

After you’ve managed a few projects, either independently or as an assistant to an experienced university or colleague, a creative project manager might earn a certification in project management. For example,

Certified associate in project management from the PIM (Project Management Institute)
Certification courses in coding or using a specific software platform

Experience

To become a creative project manager, you can develop your skills in entry-level or associate content marketing positions. The position you take might depend on your area of study. On the other hand, you might be a member of the creative project team, which can be a great opportunity to observe an experienced creative project manager.

FAQ

How Do You Highlight Creative Project Manager Skills?

Create a resume

Create a portfolio and include its URL in your resume at the top with your essential contact information
Describe the successful projects you’ve led in your professional experience section
List your key skills in a separate section to show them easily

Create a cover letter

Describe your past projects in more detail
Select one or two projects that show a wide range of your skills
Clearly describe the project’s goals and the size of the team you directed
Describe what tasks you completed and the effects of the finished product

Interview

Before the interview, you can think about your experiences because that can help you remember key details for your responses during the meeting
In your interview, you can respond to questions based on your skills
Describe your past projects and share your industry knowledge when needed