Rounds of Review - How are you doing it?

Hello Daniel, 
Our project management team adds a 2.0 review task to the timeline if 'needs work' is selected by the approver. We are using document approval functionality on proofs. This allows us to keep a close eye on rounds of review and planned hours. Plus allows the project manager to review the proposed edits before prompting the team to make, keeping an eye out for scope creep and open ended questions.

1. Creative development (writer and designer)
2. Client review (project manager adds approver to proof)
3. Edits: client review (writer and designer)
4. Client review 2.0 if needed (project manager readds approver to proof

5. Edits: client review 2.0 (writer and designer) 

For our workflow on our basic "get me this deliverable by that date" kinds of projects, we have a general project template that includes Design Proof 1, 2, 3, and 4, along with a "finalize design" task for the designer to ensure they package and store files in the correct place for archiving. Each of those proof tasks has the previous proof task listed as its predecessor with a finish-start dependency plus a 2-day lag to allow for review time. The finalize task has dependencies on each of those design tasks, so if any of them are not needed, they can be deleted and the workflow timeline stays in-tact. 

Proof 1 and finalize are pre-assigned to a designer when the project is initiated so they can be aware of the final due date of their portion of the project just by looking at their task list. We have committed to not move to the next design task until a proof decision has been made. If a second, third, etc. proof is needed because changes are required, the PM assigns them the next proofing task and/or deletes the unnecessary ones if the proof is approved on one of the earlier rounds. Identifying bottlenecks is the trickiest part though, since proof reporting is sketchy at best in Workfront, and the actual reporting within "Proofing" is painfully slow and difficult. We try to stay on top of actual completion dates as design proofs are submitted and always use proofing deadlines. Using this method we can also report on just how many projects are requiring 3+ rounds of revision. Now determining whether that's because the designer isn't getting good direction or because they aren't good at designing is up to the data analyst... 😁

At one point in time, we had a team leader that insisted on having review tasks listed and assigned out to the reviewers/approvers like you mentioned, but that required the approvers/reviewers to mark an additional task as "complete" after they made their proof decision (you'll be shocked here...they never did that step). That clunky process also required the designer to assign those proof review tasks AND assign the proofing workflow for the team (you'll be shocked here...they never wanted to do that additional step too).

Hope that helps!