Whatever you call it – a review, an evaluation, an audit, a post-mortem or something else – an editorial project review is a great way of learning from a project and identifying what you want to do more and less of in your business.
An editorial project review helps you to slow down, take stock and purposefully decide on your business's direction.
Project reviews are standard aspects of many industries. They can be vast affairs, and a project might even have multiple reviews (some projects even have 'pre-mortems', which focus on working out what might go wrong on a project before it starts!). You might have been asked to contribute to a client's larger project review as a freelancer, in which case you might have found the process prompted some interesting questions.
But you can also do your own review to learn from a completed editorial project. This will be entirely for your own purposes – not to share with anyone else (unless you want to!).
I've written before about the general process of closing an editorial project here. In this post, I'm focusing on the review part.
What is the point of an editorial project review?
Essentially, the goal of an editorial project review is to identify:
- What you want to be doing less of in future projects
- What you want to be doing more of in future projects
- Skills gaps you might want to consider addressing
- Whether you’re happy with the remuneration you’re receiving (both financially and in terms of how projects are contributing to your business’s growth)
For editors who are getting plenty of work, it's easy to feel like you're on a treadmill, with one project blurring into the next. Especially when schedules overrun, before you know it you can have spent six months rushing from project to project, without ever stopping to digest what you've learned, the direction your business is going in, or whether your work is offering you any degree of enjoyment or fulfilment.
For editors who aren't yet fully booked, it can feel difficult to justify taking the time to stop and assess what you've done. Instead, you may feel compelled to always be looking for the next project, the next client, the next opportunity to build up experience, wherever it comes from.
Without reviewing past projects, both groups can end up lacking direction and focus, and losing out on opportunities to learn and enjoy their work more. Taking the time to do an editorial project review is an investment in yourself and your potential.
When should you do an editorial project review?
An editorial project review takes place after you've handed the files back to the client and when there is nothing significant left to do. Especially if the project was stressful, you might want to let a bit of time go past to allow your thoughts about it rise to the surface. However, I'd suggest not waiting too long – perhaps around a week at most – so you don't forget any crucial details.
How often should you do an editorial project review?
I do some sort of review for every project I complete. Most of the time, the review is extremely quick and informal. For example, I might write down a few reflections in my project tracking software, or just bounce some reflections off a family member or friend.
But, especially when a project was particularly complex or difficult, I like to conduct a more in-depth review to really understand what I want to build on for the future and what I need to address relating to myself, the client or projects of that nature. I probably conduct an in-depth review of this kind about four times a year.
There's no point conducting an editorial project review for the sake of it. If you do the same kind of project over and over, and your feelings about each one are broadly the same, there's no need to review each one individually.
Four prompts you can use to assess whether now might be the right time for you to conduct a review are:
- Did you especially love a project you just completed? If so, consider doing a review to understand what you loved and how to do more of this in the future.
- Did you especially dislike a project you just completed? If so, consider doing a review to understand what you found so challenging and how to feel more confident in the future.
- Has it been more than a year since you last reviewed a project of the kind you just completed? If so, consider doing a review to check this kind of project is still right for you.
- Is the project you just completed very different from anything you've done before? Or was the client very different to work with? If so, consider doing a review to assess how you felt about the project and client, and to help you decide whether to pursue more of this kind of work in the future.
How to do an editorial project review
In my editorial project reviews, I consider four key areas:
- The editorial quality of what I delivered
- How much the project will contribute to my business’s growth (my portfolio)
- How much I enjoyed the project
- Whether my earnings matched my expectations
To conduct a basic review, you can simply jot down your thoughts about the project's positives and negatives in these four areas.
However, if you want to think more deeply about how a project relates to your wider business and personal goals, I've created a free nine-page template for you to use. The template helps you by:
- Stepping you through the four key areas (quality, growth, enjoyment and earnings)
- Enabling you to record a rating for each area on a five-point scale (essentially from 'this area was great' to 'this area was rubbish')
- Offering prompts to help you deeply reflect on each area
- Providing spaces for you to record your action plans relating to your strategy, skills, marketing and more
You can get the template by signing up to my newsletter, The Edit Better Letter.
Try the template out on a recent project. Or have it handy for the next time a project leaves you feeling uncertain or unsatisfied. Understanding why you feel this way may unlock important insights into your business as a whole.
I hope you find the Editorial Project Review Template useful and inspiring as you build a better editorial business.
Fantastic post on the importance of purposeful business growth through editorial projects! I love how you highlight the value of quality content and strategy in driving growth.