I was clearing out some notes the other day and I came across this bit of wisdom and clarity… My rejection of the concept of a process for our team creative output that I blurted out into a text editor late one night. As far as I remember I was trying to articulate my frustrations at ongoing conversations and blame sessions where the ‘lack of proper process’ was identified as the reason things went pear shaped on a project. I think I have a point – we need good communication as a tool of project management. Without it any process will fail.
I realised a process is not actually what we need. A process is a series of actions that by some dictum, need to be implemented in a certain order. A process takes input and through a series of predefined actions, produces an output. Processes are invented to make repetitive sets of actions easier and cheaper to run. Processes deal with units. We process meat, home office processes your application, you process some thoughts. There is a place for process. A process is about making your job easier.
We need a guide to the spirit in the way things should get done. We need to communicate well with our colleagues and our clients. We need glue, not a rule book or a step-by-step guide, or a checklist or a menu.