Lo3 - Planning documents - 20 marker plans.

Production schedule.

• Introduction.

A production schedule lists which activities need to be completed in order to proceed with the production of your product. Each activity is accompanied by a timeframe, milestone, list of resources, contingency and date (each an effective feature). Helping you organize your time and activities more affectively. Production schedules are usually based off of Gantt charts. Production schedules only list a certain amount of activities due to the timeframe in which they are created, e.g. a production schedule would typically last for 1-2 weeks before a new one would need to be created

• . Five effective features. 

- Are relevant to everyone in the team. 

- Work similar to a to-do list giving a goal to work towards. 

- Are cost effective as you only need pen and paper. 

- They're easy to read.
- They factor in delays (contingencies) helping reduce the possibility of the launch date being affected. 

• Three ineffective features. 

- Task's aren't typically very clear regarding detail and who they're aimed at, possibly confusing people. 

- They have to be available on sources such as email .etc, that are accessible to everyone which may be hard to establish as people work better using different technologies. 

- If timeframes, milestones and dates aren't realistic the would production process could fall apart and the launch date would be affected.

Focus group.

• Introduction.

A focus group is where you arrange a group of people to give you verbal and written feedback on your prod, this group of people should consist of people that are within your target audience, based on age, gender and lifestyle.

• Five effective features.

- May get more detailed feedback due to there not being a limit on what the audience can say back you.

- You get various ideas and opinions. 

- Can ask probing questions (can get as much information out of them as you want by asking multiple questions) - creating qualitative data. 

- use feedback to improve designs / the product (whatever you showed them).

- The meeting is recorded therefore saving the writing ideas and so on down. 

• Three ineffective features.

- Time consuming to arrange.
- Ethical issues such as impairment, must be assessable and fair for everyone.

- Answers being biased - needs to consist of people who are not connected to you in anyway or aren't afraid to agree with your idea just for the sake and money of it. Creating invalid data. 

Blue-sky-thinking.

• Introduction.

Blue sky thinking is where you arrange a meeting with everyone in your team to express individual ideas to come up with an overall plan of the product should look like. E.g. themes, the target audience, fonts and so on would be discussed within this meeting. 

• Five effective features.

- Everyone gets a say in what they think should be included within the product.
- There isn't any pressure on one specific person / everyone works as a team
- The meeting is recorded therefore saving the writing ideas and so on down. 

- You can explain your ideas in detail, allowing everyone to understand more easy. 

- If there is a problem it can be discussed in person, meaning people don't misunderstand concerns over things such as email.
- Cost effective. 

• Three ineffective features. 

- Ethical issues such as impairment, must be assessable and fair for everyone.

-  Time consuming to arrange.

- Responses to ideas being fake - due to the fact that these people are colleagues they may lie and say they like their ideas so that they don't upset the person, leading to invalid data. 

Mood board.

• Introduction. 

A Moodboard is a planning document that typically consist of visual elements such as images, colours, fonts and so on, helping give an overall understanding on the themes, target audience and genre of your product.

• Five effective features. 

- Visual, therefore they're easy to understand

- Can be cost effective if you're making them from cutting and sticking images from magazines atc. 

- Are relevant to everyone within the team.

- Easily adaptable. 

- Don't take long to make as you don't typically create / draw any images yourself, allowing you to spend longer creating the actual product. 

• Three ineffective features. 

- Due to there use for initial ideas and non-liner appearance they can be messy, making it hard for some people to understand. 

- They don't include annotations or connotations. therefore not being suitable when trying to show someone why you want the colours and themes you do for your product. 

- They don't visually show you what the product would look like post-production. .

Mindmap.

• Introduction 

A Mindmap is where you write down multiple ideas, connotations, annotations based on the product you're creating, including the themes and target audience you want, helping give an overall understanding on the foundations of your product.

• Five effective features

-  Detailed, therefore helping give an in-depth description on what you want your product to include. 

- Easily adaptable

- Cost effective as all you need is a pen and paper,

- Can be relevant to everyone within the team

- Everyone can contribute their ideas as they're non-liner. 

• Three ineffective feature

- Don't include images or any visual elements.

- Can look messy as handwritten and non-linear- hard to understand

- You'd need to accompany it with other documents such as a visualisation diagram or moodboard.