From design to digital: five best practices to look for in a digital production team.
Every idea has a first moment, a spark that sets it alight. Those who design for a living know that everything else flows from this moment. This first expression could be meticulously rendered in Photoshop or scrawled on a cocktail napkin. But concept always comes first. Downstream, ideas can flow into many tributaries, eventually appearing on packages, billboards, buses, etc. But these moments of analog brilliance must inevitably be transformed into zeros and ones. Digital media shapes the current marketplace, no matter what business you (or your client) are in. Your idea must spring to life on the screens of a mobile device.
And for that, you need to navigate the digital production process, which is no simple feat. And while the good news is that software and bandwidth are steadily improving, the bad news is that this very progress might make digital production even more complicated. A broader set of choices is a plus, but too many choices can be confusing and ultimately paralyzing. Fear not, however. There are certain “evergreen” capabilities that will always drive quality in digital production. And these are the attributes you should look for when building or hiring a team.
Here are five best practices for digital production teams to successfully and elegantly translate design into digital.
1) A “hybrid” skill set: creative developers
It’s easy to think of anyone who writes code (or in fact anyone who’s work product is code), as a “developer” or an “engineer”. They are, the conventional wisdom goes, people who do not understand design, almost by definition. They are nerds. Propeller-heads. Non-creative. But even if that were ever true (which is debatable), it is certainly not true now. Digital media has come of age. Programming languages like JavaScript serve as part of the toolset for a new class of creative professionals. They are design-oriented people who use code the way designers use Photoshop or Illustrator. They produce visualized, dynamic experiences in 3D space, and they have a strong ethic around preserving conceptual design elements and taking a user-centric approach.
Creative developers are most capable executors of “pixel-perfect” digital production. In a market where it is already difficult for brands achieve meaningful differentiation, creative developers provide maximum design freedom when you need it. They are not encumbered by the use of pre-built templates. They can “color outside the lines” if that’s what it takes to properly execute your concept.
These “hybrid” creative professionals are still a somewhat rare breed, but they are an essential element of a good digital production team. They know the technical tools needed to achieve your goals. But more importantly, as creative people they have the same motivation as designers – to create stunning work. They also make for a leaner, more flexible team, which mitigates costs and speeds up time-to-market.
2) A user experience mindset
Good digital productions teams adhere to the old axiom: “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. If you need your digital team to create a transcendent user experience, you don’t want them burning precious hours on building a custom network security application that you don’t need and your users will never know is there. For some years, there has been positive and prevailing trend in software generally (and web applications, specifically), to commoditize the more “utilitarian” applications. In other words: if you need that stuff, you can buy it off the rack; you don’t have to build it. A good digital production team will make sound judgements about what must be created from scratch vs. what can be licensed for use.
When you build or hire a digital production team, you should demand a deep set of skills which includes the ability to deploy whatever technology is required to achieve your creative vision. In some rare cases, there will be foundational applications that don’t exist in the marketplace and must be custom-built. In the current technology environment, this should be the exception now and moreso going forward. Hours spent on custom coding are precious; the result is new intellectual property. So those hours are best spent in direct pursuit of achieving the creative vision. Your digital production team should be optimizing their time to maximize their impact on the user experience and minimizing the “back end” housekeeping.
3) A deep and stable team
The search for the “Holy Grail” of low cost, highly skilled developers has had mixed results, to put it mildly. We have seen a rush to embrace “virtualized” labor forces to perform mission-critical work, in form of overseas labor or the growing freelance/contract pool. The allure is to cut costs and hedge against uneven workloads. But all too often, the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. In many cases, these strategies have increased costs and generated conflict through delays in ramp time, time-zone challenges, and inappropriately matched skillsets.
A major cost-driver that is often overlooked is the team’s stability, regardless of location. One common challenge for agencies with in-house digital teams is high turnover among developers who encounter an environment where their needs and professional goals are not properly understood or supported. Such high turnover bogs down projects and inflates costs. A stable team has low turnover and a deep portfolio of projects under their belt. Team stability breeds efficiency and a more collegial, and thus more creative, environment. Individuals in a stable team will learn the strengths and weaknesses of their fellow team members. They will absorb the best ways to effectively communicate, and develop bonds that will imbue a strong sense of personal responsibility for the quality of the work. In the military, this is known as “unit cohesion”. Unit cohesion is a major predictor of successful, timely outcomes.
And perhaps most importantly in the case of digital production, such teams have a highly tuned ability to internalize concept ideas and goals because they are so good at sharing knowledge across the team. On such a team, you will find fewer cases of a “head down” coder working in isolation and potentially at cross purposes with team and/or client goals. A well-tuned team may come at a premium cost; but it can (and often does) save time and money.
4) A repeatable and proven process
One of the natural features of a stable team is a well-oiled process. It matters less what process is employed or what development “methodology” is in use. What really matters is the track record, and that is what you should focus on. Digital production, as with any form of development, is highly vulnerable to scope creep and other forms of delays and cost overruns. At the root of most problems you will find inadequate communication. This typically takes two forms: One, a failure to adequately define and scope the project at the outset, and two, a failure in diligently updating the team, management, or the client when problems are encountered.
A good digital production team will make the necessary effort up front to nail definition and scope before a line of code is generated. If you find this annoyingly detailed, it’s a good sign. Good developers understand that an unhappy client negates even their best work, so they take pains at the outset to avoid it when it matters most. And once the project is under way, a seasoned group will employ a well-defined, well-articulated, and well-tested process, with clear milestones to maintain a real-time sense of how the project is progressing. This backbone of a tested process combined with a cohesive team will enable quick recognition and reaction to problems, potential or real. The final result for you or your client will be work that is high quality and delivered in a timely way. And at the end of the day, it often results in the most cost-effective outcome as well.
5) A bit of restlessness
Technology is the ultimate moving target. Digital media is a roiling sea of constant change…changes in devices, browsers, bandwidth, programming languages, creative trends, etc., etc. A good digital production team is not overwhelmed by this insanity, but rather embraces it. A certain infatuation with new and shiny things is a positive cultural attribute for digital production teams. You want a team that is not afraid of a little risk and experimentation. Because advances in tech are already moving fast and constantly accelerating, the risk of getting entrenched in the tools and tech of the current moment is generally greater than that of embracing change. So if your digital product team starts pushing AI-powered augmented reality perhaps a little bit before its feasible, just assume that its only a matter of time until its on the project plan. And be glad they are in front of it, rather than behind it.
So that’s our primer on what to look for when building or hiring a digital production team. We would love to hear your feedback, your additions, your tips and tricks. Drop us a line!