Many teams have encountered the infamous ‘Scope Creep.’ It usually starts with a minor change request after the project execution has already begun. This doesn’t usually rock the boat too much until more start rolling in, ultimately bringing the project to a screeching halt caused by double work and a break in communication flow. The culprit?  A lack of clearly defined project objectives and expectations from the beginning. 

Scope Creep is a common byproduct of an inefficient intake process. In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at what constitutes a strong intake process and how applying these simple best practices can increase your team’s input and, ultimately, your bottom line. We’ll also highlight Hive features that can help you streamline and automate your intake process. 

Components of a Strong Intake Process

The easiest way to gather information for a request involving your team’s resources is to use an intake form, which consolidates all needs into one place. A well-built intake form answers the question, “What does my team need to know in order to plan, execute, and deliver in the given timeframe?”  When drafting the questions for your intake form, consider these two categories: Project Planning and Project Categorization. 

Project Planning:

These are the questions that keep issues like scope creep at bay. They enable your team to align on goals, timelines, scope, and objections. Here are a few questions to consider:

• Is this a new project request or an existing project that needs updating?
• Describe your project objective.
• What are the project deliverables?
• What is the target date for the completion of this project?
• Does this project include a budget?
• Who are the key stakeholders for this project?
• Who is the primary decision maker?
• Who is the primary contact for this project?
• Are there any supporting reference materials?

Project Categorization:

You can avoid project delays by categorizing your projects in your intake process. Ask yourself, what are your team’s primary project/work buckets? Consider ‘project categories’ how you would organize the different types of requests that your team receives. If you’re a creative services team, those might include printed marketing collateral, digital assets, and website updates. If you’re a marketing team, your project buckets may include digital ads, social media, and communications. Identifying a project category during intake ensures that the request is routed to the right person or team. And that the right internal workflow is followed. When your project is set up correctly (the right resources enabled and the right processes activated), there is little room for project delays and miscommunication. 

Your Intake Form should offer the following:

• Clearly defined project objectives and project scope
• Clear project expectations (deliverables/assets, timeframe, etc.)
• Precise project categorization or project selection criteria (what category does the request fall under, i.e., which team(s) do you need to enable?)

Ways to Strengthen Your Intake 

1. Incorporate project-scoping questions. Don’t be afraid to dig deeper! The more information you have, the better your chances of accurately setting up your project and kicking off the appropriate internal workflows with the right people. If you’re a marketing team, in addition to requesting a ‘project objective,’ include fields like ‘primary audience,’ ‘messaging,’ and ‘call-to-action.’ If you’re a creative services team, for printed marketing collateral requests, be sure to include fields like ‘paper stock,’ ‘quantity,’ ‘color or b&w.’ This additional information will provide a much clearer scope for your development team and avoid any unnecessary back-and-forth with the requester. 
2. Segment your data upfront. Develop a project selection criteria that includes both project categories and sub-categories. This categorization strategy will enable you to properly route projects to the right person/team/stakeholder. If you’re a creative services team, in addition to a ‘printed marketing collateral’ category, add sub-categories like ‘flyers,’ ‘postcards,’ and ‘business cards.’
3. Help your requestors help you. For question fields that are a bit open-ended, help guide your requestors to the type of answers you’re looking for by including descriptions and examples of what you mean. For instance, for the field ‘project objective,’ add a field description that says, ‘Describe your purpose and goals for this project; specify the desired outcome.’ Pro tip: include examples of goals that have been successfully executed in the past. 

Use Hive Forms to Streamline Project Set-Up

Hive Forms is a form-builder feature available in Hive that allows you to create custom forms that anyone (i.e., internally or externally) can fill out in their browser. It also offers conditional formatting, facilitating a streamlined intake process. 

To find Hive Forms, visit the Hive Apps section of your workspace, and pin “Forms” to your left-hand side bar for easy access.

• Consolidate multiple intake forms into one. Make requests from your team a one-stop shop. The days of having a photo request form, media request form, AND creative services request form on your website are long gone. Create one intake form for a streamlined project and work intake process using conditional formatting. Have specific questions show up based on the project category selected. For example, if someone were to select ‘photography’ from the project category field in your intake form, subsequent questions relevant to a photography request will appear. 
• Tie intake with a project setup. Hive forms can set up custom routing options for all form submissions. In other words, you can automate the setup of your project. There are a few options to choose from:
  • “Each time a form is submitted, it will be added to a selected project and assigned to a team member.”
    • This routing option is perfect for teams with a designated Project Manager. It creates an intake folder or project queue, allowing the Project Manager to vet requests before enabling resources (see image below).
  • “Each time a form is submitted, a new project will be created with the following members.”
  • “Each time a form is submitted, an email will be sent to the following people.” 

A weak intake process can negatively affect your project management and internal workflows by causing project schedule delays, miscommunication, and stakeholder frustration. In addition to project scope creep, a less robust intake can lead to a demotivated team and stakeholder or customer dissatisfaction, which can put your organization at risk. Use the best practices shared in this article to streamline your intake process and take the confusion out of project management so your team can focus on what they’re good at! 

Conduct An Operations Audit 

Need help defining your team’s project categorization and internal workflows? Undergo an operations audit of your internal processes and project management workflows to identify developmental needs that inform changes and improvements. Get customized project workflows—from intake to distribution—developed for your organization and team’s needs. Receive a custom-built intake form using conditional formatting to ensure streamlined project workflow implementation and the consolidation of existing forms.

Our Hive Partner, Joanne Augustin Giles, a Workflow Consultant, offers this service to our Hive Swarm! 

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Written by: Joanne Augustin Giles | Marketer & Workflow Consultant

As the Founder and Owner of All Things Content LLC—a boutique marketing and consulting agency—she has developed and executed digital marketing campaigns for brands of all sizes in various industries and hand-crafted cross-team workflows for marketing teams. Through her operations audit framework and custom-built workflows influenced by feedback from marketing teams and their partners, Joanne has transformed teams from working in silos to collaborating in a structured way.