As a design agency, Brucira’s motto has always been designing products that users fall in love with. That means working dedicatedly on each project and finding innovative and strategic ways to manage multiple design projects seamlessly so the deadlines are always met and the end product makes our clients go, “Wow!”
Here are 8 things that we have come up with over the years at Brucira that make handling multiple design projects easy for our team.
1. Having priorities established beforehand
Whether it’s a short-term project or a project that spans over three months, one thing that we do before we begin the project is to establish the priorities. For example, the client may need a part of the project first such as the home page of a website, wireframe for a website, or the illustration for the digital banner. This ensures that the most important or urgent parts of the projects are handled in a manner that not only the deadlines are met but both the design agency and client are on the same page regarding the different parts of the project and the relative priorities that are set.
2. Having design guidelines and library in place
Not all the parts of our projects require customization so we have design guidelines and a Brucira design library in place from where our designers can draw inspiration and quickly come up with an illustration, the layout of a particular page on a website, or the functions of an application. This not only helps quicken the designing process and juggle multiple projects at a time but also avoids wasting time in the later stages due to the design guidelines not being met.
3. Having milestones to keep track of progress
Each design project is broken down into milestones keeping in mind the final deadline and then the deadline for each milestone is set. While managing multiple projects, this comes in handy as you can predict when times are going to be rough and either do some work in advance or get in extra help for tight schedules. This also makes sure the entire team knows the task dependencies and can schedule their work on different projects accordingly.
4. Keeping the client updated at every stage
At Brucira, we believe in ongoing feedback as the client stays updated at every stage and much time is saved at the later stages. How? Let’s take an example to understand things better. You designed a website for your client. You shared it with your client at the final stage and when everything from the coding to the UI is worked upon, the client tells you that they don’t like the layout or they need some changes in the functionalities. Think how much of your team’s time would be wasted changing everything from the scratch?
5. Working in sprints
While working on multiple projects, it becomes essential to devote time to all projects. Our design team thus breaks a normal workday into sprints. For example, a UI designer in our team may be a part of three projects. While he may have a small role in project A, he has to work considerably in projects B and C. Thus, his normal workday may involve three sprints where he handles tasks of all three projects, albeit the time periods may be different. This makes sure no project lags behind and every project has continuous progress.
6. Encouraging flexibility
One thing we believe at Brucira is that our processes may help us avoid 99% of problems but flexibility helps us deal with the rest 1%. We have had many instances where we had to rush a project or delay a part of the project due to other commitments. Giving our team the flexibility to delegate, work their own hours, and also work overtime if needed has helped us be at the very best in our field, providing satisfaction to hundreds of clients.
7. Always keeping a buffer
What if a team member has an unavoidable emergency? Or what if working on feedback took longer than anticipated? These are some common problems that occur during a project. To meet the deadlines, we always keep a buffer for each of our projects. Not only does it help us deal with contingencies, but it also makes sure our team doesn’t get overburdened with work every now and then.
8. Making use of different tools to streamline work responsibilities
At Brucira, we make use of four major tools for coordination and streamlining projects:
- Ruttl: For website feedback where our team can get precise feedback and can even collaborate with our clients.
- Trello: To set milestones for our projects and assign tasks to everyone on the team.
- Slack: For communication purposes and having work review at the end of each day.
- Brutask: To have a look at every team member’s personal tasks for the day and how much progress has been made.
It took many years of experience and mistakes to reach a stage where we are proud to take on multiple projects and handle them efficiently.
If you need help creating an amazing product, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]
