Selecting the Team for Multimedia Projects

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Team Management

• Selecting the Team for Multimedia Projects

Team Management
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Selecting the Team

• Staffing on multimedia field is more complex than
  other sectors
• For example,
• An architectural design firm will hire
  architect, draftsman, salesman administrative
  staff .
• A local moving company need drivers, movers, and
  properly a small team of clerical staff.

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Selecting the Team

• In multimedia company, you need to have skills to
  appreciate and manage team members from several
  disciplines whom they can match your project
  needs, while keeping a balance of resources
  available or budget limitations.

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Selecting the Team

• Identifying the skills needed
• The combination of skills needed varies from
  projects to projects.
• After having an idea of
• Project nature use of media, platform, scope,
  administration, estimated length of the
  production.
• Expectations of the clients.
• You should be able to identify the staff needed.

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Selecting the Team

• Common structure of multimedia team
• A Core Team, who work together for majority of
  the project. Core Team can be hired on full-time
  base. Some may be by contract, depends on the job
  nature and company policy.
• An Extended Team, usually on contract, temporary,
  or freelance base, to fulfill particular tasks.

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Selecting the Team

• Core Team
• Producer / Project Manager (oversee the project
  from start to finish)
• Chief Designer / Art Director
• Graphic Artist (number depends on size of
  project)
• Programmer (Example, for online project,
  programmer who write html, java, asp, cgi, php,
  flash, shockwave, etc.)

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Selecting the Team

• Remark
• Because nowadays multimedia specialists may have
  education and/or experience on variety of digital
  skills, they may be able to take up more than one
  role from the team list. This would help to keep
  the size of core team compact, thus easier to
  maintain effective communication flow.
• But we need to allocate the right amount of
  workload and responsibilities. It is not a good
  idea to exhaust any core team members.

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Selecting the Team

• Extended Team
• Video
• Director, producer, videographer, editor, special
  effects editor, title/sub-title designer,
  actors/performer, production assistant
• Sound
• Voice-over artist, recording artist, sound
  editor/sound designer
• Animation
• 2D / 3D animator, animation producer, editor
• General support
• Administrator, coordinator, clerical staff
• Specialists
• Script writer, technical support (hardware
  software), interactive designer, any other
  experts when needed

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Selecting the Team

• How to find independent contractor / freelancer?
  
• Someone you know, or recommendations from friends
  and colleagues.
• Pro already have personal references, the
  candidate may already worked with you, or the
  people you know before, higher reliability, less
  time and effort involved. A very usual practice.
• Cons May be too subjective, easy to form small
  circle a narrow way of talent search easy to
  ignore talents that you never met before,
  disadvantage to young talents.

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Selecting the Team

• How to find independent contractor / freelancer?
  
• Agency. There are recruitment agencies
  specialized on multimedia, IT, graphic animation
  video experts.
• For example, In LA, Artisan refer artists to
  major studios like Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony
  Pictures, etc. Internationally (include US
  Hong Kong), Aqent httpwww.aquent.com (Database
  provided online for both job seekers and
  employers)
• Pro
• Through profession service, more objective in
  recruitment process
• agency lessen the amount of work on
  administration.

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Selecting the Team

• How to find independent contractor / freelancer?
  
• Agency.
• Cons
• You need to pay agency fee. The fee came out from
  your budget.
• One more layer on staffing. In some situation,
  the person work for you is hired by the agency,
  not directly from you. You pay to the agency and
  the agency pay the worker, of course after
  subtracting the commission. This may cause issue
  in sense of belonging and commitment among the
  team.
• Some agencies would set rules to prevent employer
  to hire the same person directly even after
  completion of the commissioned assignment. If you
  find the person really good and you want to hire
  him/ her again, you need to keep using the agency.

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Selecting the Team

• How to find independent contractor / freelancer?
  
• Open Search - Advertisement.
• Announcement on newspaper, related magazines,
  Newsletters, website, online newsgroup, chat
  rooms, etc.
• Pro large exposure, may get lots of responses,
  you totally control the selection process.
• Con High cost placing an ad can be expensive,
  you may get lots of irrelevant applications,
  unnecessary time and effort to sort out the right
  candidates.

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Selecting the Team

• Interview the candidates
• Interviews are a 2-way process
• Employer assess the candidates
• Candidates also assess the company and the
  interviewer(s)
• In project base interview, candidates also assess
  the nature of project and time involved.

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Selecting the Team

• Tips
• 1. Keep a list of independent contractors
• The list should contain contractors name,
  contact info, area of expert, amount and method
  of payment, and may be short comments of past
  performance.
• The list can offer immediate contacts on a
  project that need last minute manpower.
• Use the list to sort out regulars, people who
  work well for you.
• You can use data on payment to estimate budget
  expense for future projects.
• The list should be updated on regular basis.
  Independent contractors and freelancers may
  change to full-time positions, or already
  committed to other projects. Also, make sure
  their contact information is updated, too.

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Selecting the Team

• Tips
• 2. Its important to clearly assign
  responsibilities
• List all tasks, then compare the list of staff
  and their assigned role responsibilities, to
  make sure all aspect of tasks are covered.
• The list can be useful during interview.
• Avoid duplication of roles, may cause confusion
  on both work flow and team management.
• If find out certain tasks still not fulfilled,
  need to either hire new member to take the role
  (if budget allow) or allocate the task to
  existing staff. This should be done as early as
  possible. Unsuccessful team manager tends to
  give new responsibilities to team members
  anytime during the production process.

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Team Management

• Team Management Principles

Team Management
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Team Mgt Team Culture

• Most multimedia projects take place in a team
  culture. This means
• All members involved are working towards to the
  same set of tasks.
• Under the same team, each member has a defined
  role, yet has certain level of understanding
  other team members responsibilities.
• Mutual support developed, in order to achieve the
  common goal.
• Shared success failures.

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Team Mgt Team Culture

• During the whole production process, it is
  important to maintain the team culture.
• Good team leadership
• A leader represents the teams need views.
• Keep balance between individual viewpoint and
  team task, between personal interest and common
  interest.
• Make sure a coherent teamwork that utilize each
  team members skills and efforts.
• Especially in multimedia project setting, keep an
  open positive working atmosphere.

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Team Mgt Team Culture

• During the whole production process, it is
  important to maintain the team culture.
• Each member has their own expertise and this may
  come along with certain level of ego. People with
  more art background have different sets of ego
  and working disciplines than people from more the
  technology background. People may not get along
  for thousands of reason.
• A leaders role is to make sure a common ground
  has clearly established, all team members are
  contributing their best for the project, as the
  first priority.

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Team Mgt Management Style

• 1. Directive
• It works well if you have the knowledge and
  experience to make necessary decision.
• Pro decision can be made quickly
• Con You are taking the whole responsibilities
  for the decision cannot over-do, as it affect
  team spirit. Team members may challenge your
  perspective.
• Directive style works better on smaller sector of
  a project, which may only involve simple issues

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Team Mgt Management Style

• 2. Collaborative
• When you need a multiple types knowledge, skills
  and experience to make decision, you seek the
  teams views to make decision. This is based on
  collective opinions. In usual cases, this mgt
  style applies to lots of multimedia team .
• Pro can gather opinions from people with
  specialized skills to solve problems shared
  responsibilities enhance team culture.
• Con may take long time to reach decision. Need
  to be careful of production timeline.
• Collaborative decision may not involve the whole
  team. The effective way is only seek views from
  members have the relevant skills.

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Team Mgt Management Style

• Delegation