By Randall Garcia — Mar 21, 2025

PMBOK for Rebels: How KFC Became a Streetwear Icon

Note: This blog series represents a creative reimagining of the KFC LIMITED campaign through the lens of project management. Names, specific situations, and conversations have been modified. While based on a real campaign, I'm exploring how it might have unfolded had I been leading it as a Creative Project Manager—a role I didn't hold at the time. Consider this "based on a true story" with creative license applied for educational purposes.

Introduction: When the Colonel Met Fashion

Eight years ago, I watched from the creative team as the KFC LIMITED branded merchandise campaign unfolded. As a designer on the project, I witnessed how a fast-food icon transformed into a streetwear phenomenon. Today, as I develop my skills in prompt engineering and creative project management, I'm looking back on this campaign through a new lens.

This blog series reimagines the KFC LIMITED campaign—which generated over 500 million impressions in 48 hours and sold out within days—as a case study in creative project management. I'll explore how traditional project management frameworks can be reimagined for creative contexts, producing both better outcomes and more fulfilling creative processes.

As I've evolved in my career toward what I call the "Quantum Sherpa" approach—guiding teams through ambiguous creative territory while maintaining enough structure to reach the summit—I see the KFC LIMITED campaign as a perfect vehicle for illustrating these principles, even if the actual project management unfolded differently at the time.

Why This Series Matters Now

The creative industry is at an inflection point. With AI transforming execution capabilities and stakeholders demanding increasingly boundary-pushing work on tighter timelines, the old approach of "creative chaos" simply doesn't cut it anymore. Yet traditional project management frameworks often feel stifling in creative contexts.

What's needed isn't less structure, but the right kind of structure—frameworks that channel creative energy rather than constrain it.

Through this series, I'll walk you through all 49 PMBOK processes as they might have applied to the KFC LIMITED campaign, showing both:

The technical framework (what I call the "A-Side")
The narrative reality (the "B-Side")

Each post will explore how formal PM processes can be adapted for creative contexts without losing their power. You'll see conceptual examples of project charters that don't kill creativity, stakeholder maps that reveal hidden influence networks, and risk management approaches that actually enhance creative exploration rather than diminishing it.

Frameworks for Creative Project Management

When KFC approached the agency about creating branded merchandise, they initially envisioned standard promotional items—t-shirts, hats, maybe a tote bag. What emerged instead was a high-fashion streetwear collection that had GQ, Hypebeast, and Esquire covering a fast-food brand as a legitimate fashion player.

In reimagining how this transformation might have been managed, I've developed several frameworks:

The Creative Constitution: A 2×2 grid framework that replaces rigid specifications with bounded creative territories
Constellation Mapping: A visual stakeholder identification method that reveals influence networks invisible in traditional matrices
The Tension Index: A metric for quantifying and optimizing the productive tension between commercial demands and creative ambition

These aren't trademarked methodologies, but rather approaches I've found valuable in bridging project management discipline with creative freedom. Think of them as open-source tools for your own creative project management toolkit.

Prompt Engineering and Project Management

As I develop my skills in prompt engineering for working with AI, I've noticed fascinating parallels with creative project management. Both require:

Creating bounded frameworks that channel creative exploration
Balancing structure with flexibility
Finding the right level of constraint to encourage rather than inhibit innovation
Visualizing complex relationships and dependencies

Throughout this series, I'll highlight these connections, showing how the mental models from creative project management apply to effective prompt engineering, and vice versa. This retrospective view of the KFC LIMITED campaign serves as an ideal playground for exploring these intersections.

What You'll Gain

Whether you're a creative who's skeptical of project management, a PM professional looking to work more effectively in creative contexts, or someone exploring prompt engineering for creative work, this series will provide:

Practical adaptations of PMBOK processes for creative work
Visual frameworks you can immediately apply to your projects
Storytelling techniques that help stakeholders embrace structured creativity
Leadership approaches for navigating the tension between process and inspiration

Throughout the series, I'll also highlight how modern AI tools can enhance these approaches, transforming creative project management for the generative age.

Series Outline

We'll follow the natural progression of the project through the five PMBOK process groups:

Initiating (This Week): How we might transform a provocative concept into an authorized project with the right kind of structure
Planning: Creating frameworks that enable rather than constrain the creative process
Executing: Leading a cross-functional team through uncharted territory
Monitoring & Controlling: Adapting to challenges while maintaining creative integrity
Closing: Measuring success across both commercial and cultural dimensions

Coming Up First: The Initiating Processes

In my next post, I'll dive into the Initiating Process Group, where we'll explore:

Developing a project charter that balances structure with creative freedom
Creating a "Creative Constitution" that transforms how success might be measured
Mapping a constellation of stakeholders that crosses traditional industry boundaries
Establishing the gravitational forces that guide the entire project

This crucial foundation transforms vague possibility into structured potential, creating the bounded space where creativity can flourish with purpose and direction.

A Personal Note

Looking at the KFC LIMITED campaign eight years later, I see it as a perfect case study for understanding how project management and creativity can amplify rather than diminish each other. While I wasn't leading the project management aspects at the time, reimagining how these processes might have been applied has been incredibly valuable for my current work in both creative direction and prompt engineering.

The approaches I'm developing now represent what I call "PMBOK for Rebels"—a framework that respects the power of project management while recognizing the unique needs of creative work.

I hope this series helps you find your own path to becoming a Quantum Sherpa for your teams—providing enough structure to reach the summit while embracing the beautiful uncertainty of creative exploration.

Next up: "The Initiating Processes: Creating the Right Kind of Structure" – Subscribe to get notified when it's published!

Are you a creative professional exploring project management or prompt engineering? I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments. What frameworks have you found most helpful in balancing structure and creativity?