You may or may not know that i was 18 years in Corporate Management working for one of the largest financial institutions in the world. I started in the customer contact centre in 2000, and worked my way slowly but surely into running various teams across credit cards, Corporate servicing and foreign exchange. Although i tired of the 9-5 grind, it taught me a great deal about why we have systems and processes and why a project management strategy makes or breaks the success of any project, Corporate or Interior decorating a home.

Interior Design is it’s own wonderful beast. It’s s true that 20% is creative AND 80% business. Once the 20% is over, the he business part kicks in. Within the rights amount of experience and planning, everything will go well, but not perfectly. Perfect is a word that alludes any project that relies on multiple stakeholders, following a schedule but also being humans in the process. Things go wrong. People make mistakes. But people that are experiences in working with projects and have an infra red detector and assumption that anything can go wrong and expect it-are manned with the tools to mange it. People will still make mistakes and things go wrong, but a good project manager will anticipate, bake in buffers and leaways as well as be able to shuffle and produce and as close to perfect as anyone will ever get.

Being in Corporate credit cards, there was forever a marketing project on then go that required a project lead, line optimaisation person to make sure the right emails and messages went out at then right times as well as people on the ground helping mange the staff to deliver on the dream. There’s is a launch date. It usulaly has a launch party and involves a celebration for all the harden work it took to get everybody to do what they needed to do by the launch. This should be the same for an Interior Design project. The best outcomes are brought about when there is an experienced team [or person] running the project through a series of tried and true processes, and thecommunication skills to ensure everyone involved is working co-hesively. There should always be a final install date. The final furnishings should be bought in at the final hour. The money invested in the gorgeous new furnishings enhanced with styling and a proper project ‘reveal’. Much like a Corporate product launch, it will be a fizzier if not managed correctly and without a project timeline that all agree to folow and let the people that dokit best do what it is they have the experience and training to do best.

What is the message here? The message is that like the product launch unless we let the Interrio Designer run with the installation process our clients will have a less than stellar service experience. I can’t blame my clients in the past that wanted to save money by project managing my design plan. Unfortunately it was only recently that i put a Red Cross through ever letting my client manage an installation again to save money. For my clients to save money, i allowed them to receive deliveries and hope that the delivery people would lay rugs, plaice furniture and basically make the room beautiful. You probably already no that this never happens when then client project manages this part of the project.

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