How to stop giving the same video notes

From the Arsenal: Make the old work teach.

Story Of The Day: We were looking at a finished project.

Clean deliverable.
Happy client.
(The kind of thing most teams archive and move on from)

But the finished work was not really the point.

The better question was:
​"Why did this one work?"

I've had this come up in different conversations lately.

Different teams.
Different type of work.

A finished deliverable shows the result.
The useful lessons live in the steps it took to get there.
Between version one and "final final final.mp4"

That is where the team made the calls.

What did we understand about the brand?
Where did we simplify the message?
Which decision saved us from making the work worse?

Most teams already have better training material than they realize.
​The problem is that nobody slows down after a win and banks it.

So the project disappears into a folder.
And next time the judgments start over again.

On a live project...
With someone senior giving the same notes he gave many moons ago.
(Nothing wrong with feedback)

Feedback should not be the first time someone sees how your team thinks.

One good project can teach a lot if you can pull the right lesson out of it.
And it does not need to become a giant course.
Please don't make it a giant course.

Pick one piece of old work you would be happy to see repeated.
Sit with the team for 15 minutes.
Deconstruct it.

Find the decision worth copying.

Now the next person is not starting from zero.
They have a decision rule to look at before they ask for notes.

This is how experience starts carrying some of the training load.

Takeaways: Your old project should be training your new team to make good work.

How to Apply It Today:

1. Pick The Winner: Find one past project you would want a new team member to study before touching similar work.
2. Breakdown The Decision: Pull out the one choice that made the work better. Keep it simple stupid.
3. Preload The Reference: Show them the example and explain what decision you want them to carry forward.

Pro tip: This is why people tell you to pay attention to history. Sometimes the team is solving a problem you already solved six months ago.

As promised: dialing in your video workflows 1% at a time.
That’s what we do inside the Arsenal.

If you're struggling to trust your team with video delivery...
joining Video Arsenal OS™ is the right decision.

Study history,
-David

David Yang
​Co-Founder & CCO
DenimStitch Creative
7486 La Jolla Blvd #1012, La Jolla, CA 92037