Floating

There’s a concept of ‘floating’ in food retail which means to not lock yourself down into one position so that you’re able to support the team wherever bottlenecks arise.

Is there a certain type of food order running out of stock? Does a delivery driver need a note signing? Are the fries running low? All these issues wouldn’t be possible to look out for if you were locked into one position not being able to see the full scenario.

In the real-time industries, we have producers and directors of projects, and although showrunners exist in film and television, maybe we need to introduce a floater role.

We need generalists that are able to jump from position to position to help support people when they need some time.

The floater’s time is there to support a creative team.

I notice this to be true especially in the smaller teams when every pound and penny is needed to stay afloat financially. You don’t have room for overheads such as producers and directors – you’re all in to create the best project you can.

But if you’re able to have someone who is trained in all aspects of your development pipeline, they can support and see bottlenecks and be integrated as part of the deeper production whilst helping move the project forward.