Our Story
We’re not ashamed to call ourselves project managers. We’ve both earned a good living helping other people turn their creative ideas into reality. Along the way we’ve picked up plenty of tricks of the trade that we’d like to share with you.
Jess
When I left school in 2011 I decided not to go to university and study any old degree. Instead I moved to Dubai to work and to learn how to be an event producer. A couple of years before that, I’d stood in front of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury watching Michael and Emily Eavis looking down from the wings at Jay-Z. I knew that I’d never perform on that stage, but the thought of helping so many people to have such a good time was a massive inspiration.
Moving to Dubai at the age of 19 was a bit of a risk. But three years later I’d worked on shows with artists like Jay Z, J-Lo and Pharrell Williams and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Since then I’ve worked with global brands like Chanel, Samsung and Diageo as well as the Olympic Games in Rio.
Those first few years in the business taught me that underneath every creative production there’s some hardcore project management. Without it, creativity can’t flourish. I learned the rules of project management through experience. But as I found out, this can be a painful process.
The problem is it’s difficult for creative people to acquire some management skills without going down the corporate route and doing a training course or a degree inundated with corporate waffle. Until now there’s been nothing between that and learning the hard way.
Steve
I was in the Royal Air Force and, looking back, did a lot of project management without realising that was what it was. That all changed in 1998 when I was sent out to Bosnia by the Foreign Office to help run the national elections. It wasn’t an easy project; set up and operate 3000 polling stations in four countries that had been torn apart by civil war.
It was the first time I realised that a more structured approach would help, and I borrowed a project management book from a friend and read it on the flight to Sarajevo. It wasn’t a great read, but it gave me the confidence that I needed to deliver the project on time and more or less within budget. Since then I’ve helped deliver some big government projects in the UK and the Middle East.
I’ve also tried to help people cut through the jungle of jargon that surrounds project management. It really doesn’t need to be complicated, or painful to learn. But none of the traditional project management methods that are on the market lend themselves to fast-moving, creative projects. That’s why we came up with Creative PM. It’s a new method that covers all of the important principles you need to manage any project, but in plain English. And there’s no reason why learning how to do it shouldn’t be fun.