Harder, Better, Faster: Those three words might make you think of a popular Daft Punk song. But if you’re a creative professional, you’re probably also reminded of the current demands of today’s industry. More than ever before, creatives are being asked to produce better work at a faster rate. And that means they have to get stronger.
Implementing workflow technology is one way savvy teams are meeting the increasing demand for creative work, and our panel session at this year’s HOW Design Live Conference covered just that.
Industry leaders Michael Johnson, Creative Director at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals; Ashley Pyatt, Senior Graphic Designer at H.D. Smith; and Debbie Kennedy, Creative Operations Consultant, served as panelists in a session packed with over 200 creative professionals. Together, they shared their collective thoughts on how workflow technology is making us stronger.
It’s easy to adopt.
Encouraging a creative team to adopt a new technology can be a challenge. But a workflow technology like inMotion that’s designed specifically for creatives will make managing change much easier.
“The visual nature and simplicity of inMotion appeals to creatives,” explained Michael. “It even appeals to members of my team who weren’t initially on board.”
It facilitates flexibility.
To be successful in today’s industry, creative teams need to be flexible enough to meet demands that are often constantly shifting. A solid workflow technology can help foster that flexibility.
“A good workflow system is simple, but also flexible enough that you can adjust if you need to,” said Debbie. “It lets you take a hybrid approach to agile and waterfall marketing that works best for your team.”
It helps manage feedback.
Most in-house agencies grapple with managing feedback from multiple stakeholders. Workflow technology can help simplify collecting feedback and avoid bottlenecks.
“We had a robust in-house agency, so managing edits was a big deal,” says Debbie. “inMotion helped us collect feedback from different people all in one place.”
It streamlines the review process.
Creative professionals also know that an efficient review process is essential to decreasing project life cycles and meeting deadlines. Workflow technology can encourage faster and more productive proof routing.
After implementing inMotion, Ashley saw marked improvements in her review process. “We got a proof back from someone in a few hours who usually take days to review, all because she had fun marking up the proof with inMotion,” she says.
It provides metrics.
Finally, a workflow technology can allow your team to report on the work they’re doing through metrics, which are essential to assessing productivity gaps and identifying solutions.
“Being able to measure how much time was spent on all projects was huge,” explains Ashley. “Finding inMotion was an “aha! moment” because it saved my team time and allowed us to show that we were producing more so we could hire more.”
Want to learn more about how workflow technology is making us stronger? Check out our additional resources. And don’t forget to catch up on our other HOW Design Live 2016 posts recapping everything we learned at this year’s conference.
Ellie Baldini is the Content Marketing Manager at inMotionNow. Having been a member of several creative teams herself, Ellie knows the challenges of inefficient workflows. Ellie draws on her experience to connect creatives and marketers with the benefits of inMotion, so more teams can get back to doing the work they love.