Publishing projects

A project is the shared operating record for a title. The Publishing Director sets its owner, start date, due date and budget before the editorial and production teams attach their work. The project status gives the team a common answer about whether work is planned, approved, in production, under review or delivered. A cancelled project stays distinct from completed delivery.

• Project owner. Agree who changes the project status and who resolves a due date that no longer fits the planned work.
• Budget baseline. Agree the amount to record before costs begin, so later cost entries can be read against the same approved scope.
• Work boundary. Agree which content items and production tasks belong to this project before people begin recording them.

Start with one real title and name the person who is responsible for the record. Decide who can revise dates or statuses, and when a change needs another person’s review. Check each actual project, manuscript, content or person reference before using that record in a handoff. The agreed practice should be visible in the record, not held only in an email thread.

For each handoff, identify the person expected to act next. Check that their user and People record are connected before relying on an approval decision. Keep the source attachment or agreement with the relevant record when the decision depends on it. This makes the working lists useful during a busy production week.

Take a new title with an editor assigned to its manuscript. The Publishing Director opens the project and names the project owner. The Managing Editor attaches the content items; the Production Lead attaches tasks. If the release date moves, examine the due dates on the affected work before changing the project date. The team should be able to identify who owns the project, which work is due soon and what costs have been recorded against it. Do not treat a delivered project status as evidence that every content item was published. Review those records independently.

Before expanding to other titles, ask the people named above to walk through this case in the app. They should be able to point to the current record, explain the next decision and find the owner without reconstructing the history from messages.

• Project Pipeline — Active publishing projects with their owners, status, dates and budget.
• Content Items In Production — Content due within the projects still moving through production.

See the related process and the data model for the records behind this handoff.