Creative Operations Los Angeles 2022
First Sessions Announced
We are busy developing an exciting agenda for Creative Operations Los Angeles 2022 so keep your eyes peeled for details. Register your interest here to be the first to hear about new sessions and speakers!
In the meantime, check out the first 6 sessions announced:
The Craft of Culture
The magic of design operations is our ability to make the creative process less painful and more purposeful. In this talk, we’ll discuss practical ways to develop and manage organizational change, build teams, and power creativity through culture using our design operations superpowers.
Michelle Morrison, Director of Strategy and Operations, Twitter
We’re not the Droids You’re Looking for
Applying Creativity in an Analytical Organization
There is unrest within the world’s top economic organization.
An outnumbered band of creatives have declared their intentions to abandon the old ways of working and deploy unconventional approaches to storytelling.
But pragmatic clients have other ideas and competing mandates.
Learn how IMF Creative uses data, thought leadership and human-centered design to turn skeptical colleagues into strategic partners.
Ken Nakagawa, Associate Creative Director, IMF
Jim Schmidt, Senior Creative Director, IMF
Prioritizing Visibility: Reimagination of Core Processes in Creative Collaboration
Prioritizing visibility of work amongst internal and external stakeholders alike is a crucial factor in keeping high-performing teams efficiently and effectively productive.
In this session, Cheryl Venable, Director of Creative Operations and Production at Sony Pictures Television Game Shows will review how core processes in creative workflows can be simplified – ways in which they can be broken down into their most basic and fundamental purposes and intentions – and shared across teams working both in-person and remotely.
Oftentimes, for creatives, goalposts are set in weird places – and are sometimes seemingly off the field completely. Join this session and learn tips and tricks to:
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practically leverage visibility in your flow and integrate simplicity in core processes
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review methods to keep your goals both measurable and achievable so as to effect lasting change in your organization
Cheryl Venable, Director of Creative Operations and Production, Sony Pictures Television Game Shows
The F Words: A Conversation on Creative Ops Flops and Leadership Fails
Conferences are places where experts in their field come to present their neatly packaged wins, teach detailed how-to’s, and share cool innovations.
But if we’re honest, we’ve got 100 flops for every win.
In this session, Kate Sullivan, Global Head of Creative Operations, HubSpot and Amy Strickland, Senior Director, Marketing Operations, Athleta will put each other in the hot seat to talk about the stuff that no one wants to talk about: flubs, flops, and failures.
We’ll share some specific failures from each of our careers, as well as anonymous shares from a survey sent to industry leaders. We’ll talk about how those flops pivoted into learnings, and what’s to be gained by talking about this at all.
There will be ample time for informal therapy, true confessions, and Q&A.
Amy Strickland, Senior Director, Marketing Operations, Athleta
Kate Sullivan, Global Head of Creative Operations, HubSpot
Failing Forward: Evolving Creative Project Management at the Happiest Place on Earth
In an EARidescent world of magic and joy, where dreams come true and everything is sprinkled with pixie dust, have you ever thought about how that magic is made? Who makes sure the world gets to see what’s happening inside the Happiest Place on Earth?
In this session, we’ll share with you our journey to introduce Creative Project Management to a legacy agency built inside the Princess’ Castle – Disney Yellow Shoes.
We’ll discuss:
- Once Upon a Time: How it all started
- Failing Forward: What we’ve learned
- Just Keep Swimming: Re-imagineering CPM
- Venturing into the Unknown: Plans for the future
Megan Reilly, Senior Manager, Project Management, The Walt Disney Company
Nick Zappas, Senior Manager, Project Management, The Walt Disney Company
Panel: The Dynamic Between Creative Project Management and Senior Creative Leaders
Why it is a Fundamental Determinant of a Creative Organization’s Success
Senior leaders from both 'Creative' and ‘Creative Operations’ share their insights on the evolving landscape and, in a lively panel discussion, take a close look at a specific role - Creative Project Management (CPM) and its dynamic in fostering successful creative.
There are many reports on the state-of-affairs in the in-house agencies of today. One of the biggest issues repeatedly mentioned is that 'creatives' (at all levels) spend way too much time on organizational tasks, tasks related to scheduling, data entry and other non-creative activities. Consequently, 'creatives' have less time to spend on creative work and less time to work to meet the strategy.
On the agency side, and sometimes the in-house side, many of the ‘non-creative’ tasks are the responsibility of a Creative Project Manager, which is a model that more often works well if set up with proven success factors in many environments. Conversely, it can create a bottleneck if not perceived as a respected and crucial part of the team. What are the challenges of these roles and what defines 'working well'?
This panel goes deep into the role of CPM and hears the perspective of Creative Directors’ experiences and the challenges of the Creative Operations Leaders who often oversee the CPM and must deliver (or succeed) on the expectations:
- The relief when the CPM becomes 'the glue' that holds the project together
- The CPM that has the EQ (emotional intelligence) to recognize the need to speak a different language to various members of a fully integrated team
- The 'Creative Project Manager' that moves mountains
- Or the one that always screams “the sky is falling!”
- Friend or Foe to the creative teams?
Join us while we discuss and elicit examples of the good, the bad and the very ugly, along with some best practices.
Moderator: Catherine McIntyre-Velky, Consultant, Creative Operations, Process Development and Change Management, McVelky LLC