Translate a client brief into a scoped statement of work with milestones and a production schedule.
Project Management
Project Management in Creative and Digital Agencies
Manage creative and digital agency projects from brief to delivery: scope and estimate creative work, run production schedules and review rounds, and protect margin on fixed-fee and retainer work.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Agency projects fail less often on creative quality than on scope, timeline and margin: a brief that was never quite locked down, review rounds that multiply without a decision point, and a retainer that quietly absorbs work it was never priced to cover. This course is written for the people who hold that tension between creative ambition and commercial delivery. Participants learn to turn a client brief into a scoped statement of work with a realistic production schedule, resource projects across designers, writers, developers and producers who are shared with other accounts, and manage review and approval rounds so feedback converges instead of restarting the work. Sessions cover the traffic or resource management function, distinguishing project-based from retainer engagements, and the change-order process for requests that fall outside the agreed scope. The course also looks at agile approaches adapted for marketing and creative teams, campaign launch coordination across channels, and the utilisation and margin reporting that tells agency leadership which accounts are profitable. Examples are drawn from branding, content, digital product and campaign work. Participants finish able to scope and schedule creative projects with commercial discipline, run review cycles that reach a decision, and manage a retainer or project book without silently eroding margin.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Estimate creative and production work using effort benchmarks from comparable past projects.
Run review and approval rounds with a defined number of cycles and a clear final decision-maker.
Resource projects across shared creative, production and development staff without double-booking.
Apply a change-order process that prices and approves work falling outside the original scope.
Distinguish project-based and retainer engagements and manage the boundary between them.
Report utilisation and margin by account to identify scope creep before it erodes profitability.
Who Should Attend
Agency project managers and producers running creative and digital work
Account managers responsible for scope, timeline and client satisfaction
Traffic and resource managers scheduling shared creative and production staff
Creative directors balancing creative ambition against budget and deadline
Agency operations and finance leads tracking utilisation and account margin
In-house marketing teams managing agencies and internal creative resources
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Briefing, Scoping and Estimating Creative Work
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1From Client Brief to Scoped Project
- Interrogate a client brief for missing objectives, audience detail and approval authority before quoting.
- Translate a brief into a statement of work with defined deliverables, milestones and exclusions.
- Estimate creative and production effort using benchmarks from comparable past projects.
- Agree the number of review rounds and revision scope included in the price before work begins.
Session 2Production Scheduling
- Build a production schedule that sequences concept, design, build and review against the deadline.
- Identify dependencies between creative, copy, development and third-party production partners.
- Add buffer around client review points, which are the least predictable stage of an agency schedule.
- Communicate the schedule to the client in a form that shows what they are accountable for delivering.
02Planning and Resourcing Agency Projects
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Resourcing and Traffic Management
- Forecast resource demand across live and pipeline projects to spot overallocation early.
- Sequence shared designers, writers and developers across accounts without silently delaying either.
- Flag resourcing conflicts to account leads before they turn into missed deadlines.
- Rebalance a schedule when a priority project is added without quietly dropping committed work.
Session 2Project-Based Versus Retainer Delivery
- Distinguish scope, governance and reporting needs between project-based and retainer engagements.
- Track retainer hours and deliverables against the agreed scope to catch quiet scope creep.
- Set a monthly retainer planning rhythm that agrees priorities before the work starts, not after.
- Convert recurring retainer requests that exceed scope into a proposal for additional budget.
03Managing Creative Production and Client Reviews
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Running Review and Approval Cycles
- Structure feedback rounds so client comments are consolidated before being sent back to the creative team.
- Separate subjective preference from brief-based feedback when triaging review comments.
- Name a single client approver for each milestone to prevent conflicting stakeholder feedback.
- Close out a review round with a documented decision rather than an open-ended set of comments.
Session 2Change Requests and Scope Control
- Log change requests as they arrive and assess their impact on schedule, cost and other workstreams.
- Price additional scope using the same estimating method applied to the original project.
- Present a change order to the client that separates it clearly from the original agreed scope.
- Decide when a change request is small enough to absorb and when it must be formally re-quoted.
04Campaign Delivery, Retainers and Agency Growth
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Coordinating Multi-Channel Campaign Launches
- Sequence asset delivery across channels so nothing launches ahead of a dependent approval or asset.
- Coordinate media, creative and client teams around a single launch-day runsheet.
- Plan contingency for late assets or approvals without moving a fixed campaign launch date.
- Capture launch-day issues and resolutions to shorten the runsheet for the next campaign.
Session 2Utilisation, Margin and Account Health
- Track utilisation by role to see where creative or production capacity is over- or under-committed.
- Report account margin against the original scope to flag accounts quietly running at a loss.
- Use utilisation and margin trends to inform staffing and pricing decisions on renewal.
- Feed project retrospectives into revised estimating benchmarks for similar future work.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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