The importance of being earnest
Immersing yourself in a world of Traffic Management can be a lonely place. You find yourself not quite part of the Account Management Team and not quite part of the Creative and Production Teams. In fact aligning yourself with one can seriously affect how you are perceived by everyone else. ‘Oh Traffic looks out for the PMs, not us Designers trying to be creative’ and conversely ‘Traffic can’t fit this in for my client and it’s really important’ are common refrains. Lucky they are a hardy bunch then.
Traffic sits precariously between the PMs representing the client, with their budgets and sometimes their own delightful creative concepts ‘to save your guys time!’ the creative team who tend to feel short changed on the time they are given, and the finance guys who look incredulously at a long overdue project plan and slowly weep into their P&L sheet.
And so to the title of this piece, over the years I have shouted, cajoled, bribed, massaged egos and quietly cried in the toilets over the preposterously simple task of getting people to do work. Yes we all work for the same agency at the end of the day but a key difference between a creative Agency and other businesses is that each Dept has its own agenda: Account Management need to keep client happy, informed and willing to pay the bills. Creatives live to produce beautiful and challenging concepts – they need to break in internet (without exposing their arses) they do not want to be constrained by budgets and time. A Traffic Manager sits in the middle wiping noses and drying eyes and telling everyone it how it is.
The Traffic Manager to me has always been someone who is good with people first and foremost. You need to know what makes individuals tick and use that to everyone’s advantage. No business will last long if caution is thrown to the wind and TOTAL CREATIVE wins the day – clients would undoubtedly love the concepts, but not the 2 months it took to get there. Conversely, bending to client will is a slippery slope of smaller budgets and underperforming concepts.
Getting great project team together is of paramount importance, match the personalities with the requirements correctly at the beginning and reap the rewards. It’s not just projects, knowing who to approach for even small issues (the dreaded ‘can you justs’) are arguably more important than the large projects where focus tends to be given. Small amends/jobs are not usually cost effective: moving someone off something else to pick up a small copy amend may only be charged at a minimum rate – it may not even be charged at all. The cost in real terms however is high – consider the impact on the original job, the time needed to get your head out of one project and into another, and yes, the disgruntled person being asked to pick up a tiny copy amend. Again.
A large Creative or Production team can have people assigned to such things, but these people also need to be given a good mix of project work in order to develop themselves. Smaller teams may employ rules such as putting time aside one day a week for small amends (good luck getting a client to agree to wait 4 days for their copy amend though!) or times when work has naturally come to an end – say after lunch or first thing in the morning. Again, knowing everyones preferences: the Designer, Client and PM means you can reach a solution that keeps everyone happy.
A Traffic Management role is the voice of reason, it’s the middle ground, its got a huge wedgie from being sat on the fence – and that’s the way they like it thanks.