12. Project management
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Note: The information in this chat is based in part on notes for a workshop presentation on project management by the author, in association with Roger Green, Shirley Purchase and Loma Snooks in November 1993 – part of the Canberra Society of Editors Levels of edit training workshop.
Editing isn’t always just sitting at a computer and manipulating words. The project management aspect of the editing task often forces editors to cope with the totally unforeseen, and, increasingly in this uncertain world, they need to know how to cope with sudden changes in circumstances.
When you first receive a request to do an editing job, you need to find out quite a bit about the job: the size and complexity of the publication, its target audience, its purpose, what level of edit is appropriate, and so on – indeed everything you need to know before you can submit a quote. This is project definition, and you need to go through this process every time, whether you get the job or not.
Once your quote has been accepted and you’ve agreed to do the job, you then need to organise your work and possibly that of others on your team, schedule tasks, set deadlines, assemble resources, work out a budget and see that you and your colleagues get paid. That’s all in addition to actually editing the document (which is your real skill).
It doesn’t matter how large or small the project is – if it’s a real project, it needs project management.
Here I’ll touch on the major stages of the project cycle and the steps the editor can take to make sure that the project meets some management criteria. But first—
What is a project?
A project has a definite beginning and a definite end. An example would be getting your organisation’s next newsletter out. A project is not a process – a process is ongoing, and an example would be administering the personnel section in a company.
A project has direction – it’s goal-oriented. Once you’ve decided on the objective for the project, stick to it. 50
A project is made up of connected or interrelated activities or tasks – everything that has to be completed before you can say that the project is finished and satisfactory. These can be grouped into main sections such as initial negotiations with the author, the designer and the printer; the first read to find out the extent and level of edit required; doing the actual edit; and other sections as appropriate. Major projects need to be broken down and grouped like this so that the whole project doesn’t appear daunting. Dealing with lots of mini projects is much easier than trying to cope with the whole thing in one gulp.
A project is unique – there’s no other project exactly the same. Even if you churn out a newsletter every month, each newsletter is a separate and unique project. The principles of project management remain the same for every project, large or small, but the components change every time, so each new project is a different ball game.
What is project management?
Project management brings together and makes best use of all the resources needed to complete the project. These include people skills and effort, facilities and equipment, technical know-how and money. I don’t think you can do this in your head – the components needs to be written down and preferably charted along a time line. A lot of factors have to be considered, such as budget, time constraints and variability of team members’ skills. Time for pencil and paper!
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Defining the project is a major part of the whole editing process. It includes identifying what the job is about, who will read the finished version and what its purpose is. Does the job require a straightforward copyedit or does the whole structure need rethinking in order to be effective? How far can I go, given time and budget constraints? Are my current skills good enough for what’s required? What is the aim – to clean up or to clear up?
Planning is essential. There are a couple of sayings that have more than a grain of wisdom in them: ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ and ‘Plan your work, then work your plan’. It’s always a good idea to brainstorm: to scribble down quickly all the tasks you can think of, in any order, that you’ll need to attend to. Then use arrows to indicate sequence. You might end up with something like this:
Convert this list to a task sheet, with the name of the task and its identifying number, an indication of what must precede a particular task (predecessor), and an estimate of the duration of each task, as shown in the table below. (There are many more tasks in most projects, but this will serve to illustrate how you can set out a task sheet.)
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| ID | Name of task | Predecessor | Duration |
| 1 | Start | N/A | 0d (day) |
| 2 | Identify audience in order to set appropriate style and level of language | 1 | 1d |
| 3 | Read document file | 1 | 1d |
| 4 | Check spelling, punctuation and other basic grammar and paragraph construction | 3 | 1d |
| 5 | Correct errors in these | 3, 4 | 1d |
| 6 | Check for consistency of writing style | 3 | 0.5d |
| 7 | Send copy of marked-up document to author (or liaise some other way) – reach agreement | 6 | 1d |
| 8 | Send document to designer or printer | 7 | 0.5d |
| 9 | End project | 8 | 0d |
Having scheduled the tasks involved in this project, consider the triple constraints of project management: time, budget and performance. Try to answer the following questions:
What is the project deadline? The job has to be completed by 5 pm next Friday. How can time be allocated? Have you the time to do the whole job yourself in between other jobs, or will you need to enlist help?
Is the budget constraint already set? Perhaps it’s limited to your salary, or perhaps you know what the client can afford to pay, or some other consideration.
The performance constraint is determined by you and the client or publishing house – how much effort can you put into it, given the time and budget available? Is quality or speed more important?
Remember that project management is not editing: it’s part of the business side of the job, and would be much the same whether for a small editing job or for planning the construction of a multistorey office block. Very small projects can be kept under control by doing as much as I’ve outlined above, but when you have several editing jobs running at once, or when the project is large and involves other people besides you, a means of tracking progress is essential. Even a small project benefits from being charted clearly, and I recommend 53 using a Gantt chart because it’s very easy to see how the sequence of activities affects the progress of the project, and shows you where you might have some slack time to catch up other jobs or to liaise with the author perhaps.
Below is a simple Gantt chart for the job above. The thick black lines represent estimated time required for each task. The dotted lines represent estimated slack time.
| ID | Task name | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri |
| 1 | Start | ♦ | ||||
| 2 | Identify
|