Well, I do KNOW what a Traffic Manager does, I’m just figuring out how I’m going to do it. I was recently promoted to Communications Traffic Manager in the marketing department of my company. We’ve never had one before, so this position was created out of need for that kind of coordination and management, and I was recommended for the job. I accepted the terms today and will officially step in by late May.
Now. Since there is no former employee to learn from, or even someone who did the job prior who has since moved on, I’m trying to find resources on how to do this new job as well as I can. Some folks who worked in agencies “back in the day” told me about job jackets and other such methods for keeping the team on track for deadlines but that may be antiquated.
Has anyone ever been a Production Manager or Traffic Manager and share some tips on how to jump into this, or know of a good resource I can use to learn as much as possible?
IANATM, but according to the ones I’ve worked with, Excel will be your friend.
Job jackets are still important, but you’ll need to set up a timeline chart with targeted vs actual dates for each step, and estimated vs. actual budget figures. (If your company needs it, you’ll need to do the same thing for staff time)
Then you’ll need to have a master spreadsheet that highlights where all projects are. This is to figure out whether the bottlenecks are for individual projects, or reflect a larger problem.
The hard part about this is setting up the sheets the first time. After that, it’s pretty routine.
I can’t recommend any reference books, but what you’re doing isn’t much different from a manufacturing production manager’s role, so there should be a lot of material available.