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Managing expectations (Part 1)

For the creative-minded and the neurodivergent out there, managing client expectations, and ourselves, can be the hardest thing to do. We’re just not built that way, so it’s a hard-fought learnt skill, usually inconsistent and full of mistakes and lost clients. So how can we avoid some of those mistakes?

Managing client expectations can vary, and it depends on the location of the team, time zones, the type of artwork or project and the communication style everyone agrees on. From a bird’s eye view, we’re focusing on three key areas.

The three areas

Get these right and most of the rest looks after itself.

  1. 01CommunicationSaid and physical: what you tell people, and what your actions tell them
  2. 02A predictable processOne clear path from Draft to Deliverables that everyone can follow
  3. 03Doing what you saidBuilding what the client intended, the way you told them you would
Learnt the hard way, not borrowed from a model. There is no research behind this, just what has worked.

Communication. Three methods work for the widest audience, and they split into what is said, written or verbal, and what is physical, the actions that speak. Email or phone guides the team’s attention through each stage, sending links and collaborating on progress. Centralising the brief and drafts into one hub is by far the critical move from the beginning: it keeps everyone on the project accountable, informed, and speaking to the right information. If it’s not in the briefing, everyone except the person who forgot to add it is oblivious. The third way is an internal chat or image-specific comments, and ideally both of those happen inside the project hub.

The three methods

Two are said, one is physical. The physical one does the most work.

  • Email and phoneSaid. Guides attention through each stage, sends the links, keeps progress moving.
  • One central hubPhysical. The critical move from the beginning: brief and drafts in one place everyone can see.
  • Chat and comments on the imageSaid. Ideally both happen inside the hub, not somewhere else.
From experience, not research. The split between said and physical is just how it breaks down in practice.

A predictable process. A consistent, easy-to-follow structure is vital to a project’s health. It is what neurotypicals do naturally, and one of the easiest structures to follow is the one set up in Propagio: Draft through to Deliverables, one clear path that both neurotypicals and neurodivergents can follow together. The key metrics clients want to know are tracking those deliverables through time. Is it on schedule, and does it look good, like they intended, listening to their vision and realising it. An easy, reliable path, broken into manageable bite-sized pieces for Creatives to upload to.

Doing what you said you would do. If the brief is uploaded to the hub, an artist with a minimum of one year of experience can review it, ask questions, confirm understandings, and convert the plans into a 3D model and render camera angles ready for Draft 1 through to deliverables. With experience, an incredible artist can review the brief and guide a client to the best possible results. Either way the same systems are followed, and both artists do what they said they would do. The expectations are just managed differently.

All of this means planning the time it takes to reach the next stage, and setting aside a buffer day if something goes wrong.

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.Benjamin Franklin

Without a clear goal and preparation, the project is likely to be late, and clients will lose trust because expectations haven’t been managed. 99% of the time, clients are forgiving if you just let them know as far in advance as possible that something might be late. They will understand.

What if I fail? Firstly, there are always mistakes. The idea is to keep them to a minimum with planning, and using the central hub helps. When it does go south, focus on the desired outcome. The internal talk should be “I can figure this out”, or “this too I can get through”. It sounds obvious, but just focusing on the next positive step forward, and being kind to yourself, changes the trajectory of the project. Break the challenge or the project down into small chunks. I still, to this day, trick myself by saying I’ll do this tiny little achievable thing now and then go and chill out. Before I know it, I have done that and 10 other things I’ve been procrastinating on.

I hope this helps someone, stay tuned for part 2.
Thanks for reading.
Luke