More time to be creative
The dashboards are also invaluable to designers. Designers might be juggling multiple parts of a project and each part may require several rounds of reviews. The designer dashboards show exactly what assets have been assigned to each designer and what the status is — leaving designers more time to be creative and less time managing work.
Designers use a variety of creative apps, from Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects for video to Illustrator for large-scale graphics. But about 85% of the work is completed in InDesign. “We’re starting a beta of the Workfront plug-in within InDesign. The plug-in allows us to see tasks, collaborate, upload and manage assets — without leaving their creative context. Integration with other products adds even more value to our creative process,” says Caracci. “Designers are already liking the integration with Microsoft Teams, as it allows them to easily track reviews and approvals in a chat-like format. We expect that designers will love saving time by checking workflows within their Adobe creative app.”
Creative work-life balance
Caracci continues to search for ways to improve creative workflows. He talks to every designer who joins the creative team, eager to find ways to help them work better. But most designers are already impressed by how organising workflows can help them be more creative.
Because traffic managers have more visibility into schedules, they can also balance workloads and help designers maintain a better work-life balance. As a result, the creative team achieved the highest job satisfaction rating among JLL global marketing teams, with only a 7% unplanned attrition rate compared to 30% for some comparable teams.
“I sometimes think about how the assembly line revolutionised industrial manufacturing. I believe that something similar will happen with creative work when people start taking workflows seriously,” says Caracci. “The right workflow could look different for every team and company. For us, Workfront is just the right solution to create workflows that keep communication flowing without overwhelming people, resulting in more creative output in less time.”
Expanding your knowledge
To learn more about how you can apply these ideas for medium and large design teams, listen to Joel’s Adobe Summit session, 20,000 Deliverables: From Workflow Chaos to Harmony.