### Are You in a Hurry?
In the post, I discuss the importance of building an effective audiovisual production team, emphasizing that the quality of work is directly related to the choice of professionals involved. I begin by highlighting the need to identify the best specialists for each role, considering that experience can significantly impact the success of the project and the efficiency of processes. I also stress the importance of aligning the team selection with the available budget, seeking to balance quality with costs and exploring creative negotiation options. Another crucial point is ensuring that the team represents the diversity of society, which enriches the project and makes it more relevant. Additionally, I advocate for including assistants to streamline work and valuing all roles within the team, fostering a collaborative and human environment. I conclude by encouraging reflection on how to improve team formation in future projects, reminding that small changes can lead to great successes.
Despite often taking credit for a job well done, we all know that a production company’s work is carried out by a series of people, each specialized in a part of the project. Thus, the quality and consequently the likelihood of success of any work are directly related to the choice of the team involved.
You may think that the best way to tackle projects is to call your best friends, and depending on the circumstances, it could work out. However, to be truly professional and bet on the potential success of that project, fostering client growth and loyalty, it’s essential to go further.
For this reason, I decided to share a rationale that I consider essential for forming a team, regardless of the work at hand. I typically think of these items in a sequence that starts from the most important, adjusting and selecting until arriving at what is realistically possible for the ideal team.
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**Who Does What Needs to be Done?**
For me, the first thing to consider is who is truly the best professional for that specific service. Of course, some tasks can be quite generic, and there may be many qualified people to carry them out. However, others can be executed much more effectively if a specific type of professional is in charge.
I say this not out of mere perfectionism, but because it's important to evaluate how the choice of person can impact the project as a whole. Sometimes, choosing a professional who is doing something for the first time can delay the work and financially impact other areas due to overtime, for example.
Similarly, if a more experienced person is involved in a specific activity, they can suggest ways to simplify the work for others. Even if they are a bit more expensive to hire, the overall benefit they bring to the project compensates for that, as well as the assurance that the task is more likely to succeed on the first try. Hiring a specialist after another person fails to complete the work is what we call foolish savings, which we should try to avoid as much as possible.
Another thing to consider is that if someone has done that task many times, they likely already have the necessary tools to perform it again or, at least, have an easier time acquiring them. This can also save a lot of money and time for the project.
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**What is the Available Budget?**
Even if you know who the perfect person is for that role, often their fee may exceed what you have budgeted. This can be seen as a budgeting failure if you cannot find anyone truly qualified for the position. However, if there are several good professionals with different prices, it’s important to align your team selection with the available budget.
Sometimes, it may be worth reallocating budget to have someone less qualified in a less essential role to ensure you have the ideal professional in an area that will make a significant difference in the project’s final quality or in the time needed to execute it.
Additionally, don’t forget that there are other forms of compensation beyond money. If you have ongoing projects, you might promise more than one project, even if each fee isn’t very high. Depending on the project, it itself can be an attraction to help in negotiations if it’s based on a topic that might be interesting for a portfolio. The existing team can also encourage an outside person to participate for less than they would typically charge.
Remember something important: any negotiation should take into account the talent and effort of the professional you are trying to hire. Don’t make false promises or underestimate the knowledge needed to perform that role; this will only scare away the people you actually want to attract.
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**How Realistic is Your Project's Perspective?**
Each team member contributes a point of view to the project being developed, even though in the end, everything is unified under the project's overall direction. Before finalizing agreements with all team leads, take a moment to assess whether you are assembling a team that truly represents the reality in which the project is situated.
Every project has its peculiarities, and some may even require specific consulting if the director who won the project is not fully familiar with the subject matter. Having knowledge of the context is crucial for the project to gain real relevance when executed.
Minimum criteria that should be considered for all teams include representation data corresponding to society as a whole. If you are doing something that has or intends to have a general reach in Brazil, for example, it’s important that your project does its best to reflect the data from IBGE below:
- The Brazilian population is composed of 48.3% men and 51.7% women.
- According to data from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) 2015, 45.22% of Brazilians identify as white, 45.06% as brown, 8.86% as black, 0.47% as yellow, and 0.38% as indigenous.
Evaluate honestly whether it is possible to create a team that represents the society in which it is embedded. Even if you don’t have contacts readily available to achieve this easily, know that it’s only due to a history of injustice that has persisted for many decades, not because such contacts don’t exist. Make an extra effort, activate social networks, and step out of your comfort zone; this investment is worthwhile.
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**Where Could an Assistant Fit In?**
It took me a long time to understand this, but I hope you won’t take as long. Having assistants to help carry out projects not only plays an essential role in training more qualified professionals for the roles but is also a vital investment for the smoothness of the work.
Doing everything alone, even if it’s just a specific part of the project, can hinder the progress of all areas simply because one person has a limited capacity for production. With extra help on some more operational tasks, things can progress much more quickly for everyone.
To be practical, place the most experienced people in leadership or team lead roles. Following this same criterion, select the necessary number of assistants so that the lead does not waste time on simpler yet laborious tasks when they could be helping to solve a larger problem that requires more expertise.
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**Value All Roles**
If you need to make a decision that could impact the work of other team members, share your vision with them. A word from a member of your future or already established team may help resolve something more easily and effectively, while also ensuring that the decision considers everyone's needs.
Understand that your team represents the work you or your company does, so they all need to be aligned and happy for things to happen as you planned.
Above all, don’t forget that you are dealing with people who have needs just like you. If you can be a human and open leader, you will certainly foster collaboration, and team formation for each project will become increasingly simple, as news like this spreads quickly—sometimes just with a glance.
Prioritize what is truly important, and even if you have learned a lot from your accumulated experience so far, always remain open, as things are always changing, and there is plenty of room for improvement. Be sure of that.
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What do you think? How can your team be better in the next project? Sometimes, it takes much less than we imagine to assemble a perfect team that will bring great success to you and the company you are in. Seek to find out.
Want personalized help? Get in touch, and let’s talk!
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