Project Management for Writers
Most of us writers tend to be chaotically organized in our writings. If anyone saw our drafts, they’d be concerned about the quality of the final document and question our capabilities, but thankfully, no one else is privy to our process. Although we roughly follow the general steps in our writing, the level of chaos differs from one writer to another, and that’s one of the qualities that defines our uniqueness. Unfortunately, this chaos is a double-edged sword: if we fail to control it, it’s bound to throw us into a black hole of overwhelming stress.
That’s where learning project management comes in handy. As a writer, it’s understandable that you may not consider yourself as a project manager since we’re often stuck in our words so far away from field operations. However, when you contemplate the scope of writing, every single book, blog, article, or document you write can be described as a project.
Projects describe any operation that has a defined beginning and end. Although the processes and operations may be different, the steps to managing a project will always be the same. There are five widely acknowledged stages of project management:
- Initiation
- Planning
- Execution
- Control and Monitoring
- Closure
Though the previous stages are always applied to practical projects, like IT or construction projects, you’ll find that writing projects are no different. At the end of the day, every book you write is a product you’re delivering, and you want to do everything you can to make it the best product there is. For that, isn’t it better to devise a plan that helps you streamline the process rather than having to start everything from scratch every time you work on a new book?
If that’s your goal, the only way to do it is to view your writing like a project and work through its broad stages. Having said that, we’ve adjusted the phases of project management to give you more realistic and practical tips that will help you with your writing projects. The next time you work on a book, or any writing project for that matter, make sure to follow these seven expert tips:
1. Identify Your “Why”
Before you start hitting the keyboard or putting your pen to paper, if you prefer to write the good old-fashioned way, you need to establish your reason for writing. Are you writing this book, blog, or document for yourself? If so, what do you hope to achieve by writing it? Do you want to get it published in a newspaper or a famous online blog? Do you have a personal experience that you want to share? Do you have a novel idea you’re itching to tell? If you’re writing for someone else, is it money or exposure you’re after?
Your reasons for writing the book will make all the difference in the world. That’s because your rationale will establish your priorities in writing, and if you lose sight of your objectives, you won’t be able to offer the quality you seek. That said, your priorities in writing should make sense to you, but they don’t necessarily have to make sense to others. You can address each project according to the value it represents to you. It can be the ultimate goal or a steppingstone for what’s to follow.
2. Define and Outline the Scope of Your Book
Once you have your priorities down, it’s time to address the project scope. When it comes to business, a project scope refers to the outline of the project. It includes all the activities, resources, deliverables, and timeline that a project needs to be fulfilled. When it comes to non-fiction writing, the project scope can be outlined in the table of contents. Meanwhile, it’s the plot outline for fiction writing.
As it is with any other form of art, you have to limit the scope to be able to deliver the final product. Just like you can’t deliver an art piece using oil painting and charcoal, you can’t write a book that’s both fiction and non-fiction at the same time. To define the scope of your project, you’ll have to consider the deliverables. Once again, if you’re writing for yourself, you’ll get to choose the scope and deliverables, but it’s a different story if you’ve been contracted to write for someone else. In this case, the scope of the project is precisely defined by your contractor. However, you need to make sure to discuss it with them and understand what they need from you, and that brings us to the next point.
3. Communicate with and Understand Your Stakeholders
“Stakeholders” refers to anyone who will be affected by the contents of what you write. They include your contractors, publishing agency, coworkers, editors, and readers. However, not every kind of stakeholder has the same impact on your project. Generally speaking, there are three kinds of stakeholders:
- Critical stakeholders are the ones who can stop your project at any given point. They can be your publishing agents or contractors, and they are the ones who have the most influence over the scope, timeline, and other details of your project. You have to make sure you’re well aware of their intentions and write your book according to their instructions.
- Essential stakeholders have a certain impact on your project in the sense that they can delay your work from being published. They include your editors, coworkers (if you work in a team), or avid readers who subscribe to your upcoming work. You’ll need to keep an open channel of communication with these stakeholders to be able to fulfill the quality of the final product they’re anticipating.
- Interested stakeholders have almost no impact on your work. They include family and friends who are interested in and support your work. You may seek their support in reading and constructively criticizing your work, but you can also go about your project without their input.
Learning how to differentiate between different kinds of stakeholders is important in managing your project and time. It keeps your priorities straight and helps you focus on the most important aspects of your project and the phases it’s going through.
4. Evaluate Your Budget and Determine the Quality of Your Book
Let’s be honest: the budget is an important factor in determining the quality of your final product. Unless you’re writing for yourself, in which case you get to decide the budget based on the standards and quality you desire, you must decide how much effort, resources, and time you are willing to put into any project depending on its priority. It’s not uncommon for most writers to have several projects they’re working on at the same time, so the quality of the final product will have to be adjusted according to the importance of the client you’re working with.
5. Set Up a Reasonable Schedule
Following up on the previous points, your priorities will determine the period you’re allowed to finish a project. If you get work assigned to you, you’ll need to adjust your schedule to allow you to write and deliver the allotted projects on time. If you want to work on a personal project at the same time, you’ll also need to make sure it fits into your schedule. Writing is all about time management, after all, and it’s important to understand your own limitations. You can’t get everything done all in one day.
6. Focus on Your Project
Speaking of working on different projects, we need to address the issue of multitasking. Multitasking, in its most common definition, serves no purpose other than to detract from productivity. You can take on multiple projects at once, but only if you’ve mastered the art of focusing on each project separately. Spreading yourself too thin can only degrade the overall quality of the projects you’re working on. Instead, set up a productive workspace, tackle each project on its own, and move on to the next once you’re done with your current work.
7. Use Suitable Project Management Tools
Project management tools are a writer’s best friend. They help streamline and even automate your processes as you progress through your writing. I’m Charlii, a robust project management tool for writers. By using me, you’ll be able to take advantage of the following project management tools that were tailored for writers:
- A planning tool that helps you resolve plotlines and fill gaps. Using this tool, you can coordinate your thoughts, develop story arcs, and develop your characters throughout a single book or even an entire series.
- The calendar and reminders tool that will keep track of your timeline and remind you when you need to deliver a chapter, make progress on your lagging weekly word count, or submit to a deadline.
- Suggestions in the form of pop-ups or articles that can assist you in finishing your book.
Other project management tools that can help you include grammar and language structure checking tools, plagiarism checkers, and formatting tools.
When you think about writing as a project, everything will start falling into place. You’ll realize that there is a definite start and end to the project and that defining its goals, scope, deliverables, and variables is critical to achieving the desired level of quality. You’ll be able to make better use of project management principles to streamline your writing, improve your writing quality, and take your career as a writer to the next level.
