Creativity on a deadline

Startups and corporations alike have not been shy in adopting lean agile methodologies when it comes to process management. And since design is part of the process, creativity ends up being a deliverable on a circled calendar date.

Most of you have seen some variation of this graphic, where the design process is represented by a whole bunch of squiggles looping into each other until eventually a breakthrough solution is found. Sometimes, you’re in that mess of lines for days or even weeks on end. There’s no guarantee when, or even if, that eureka moment will come.

Asking for an outcome on a certain day is akin to asking the researches at the Large Hadron Collider to have a conclusive result by this time next year. They have no idea what they’re going to find out; all they can do is eliminate theories step-by-step and analyze the evidence.

Even in the creative process, you don’t really know what you’ll end up with. The best we can do is say what we tried, where we failed, and what we learned. This sets the stage for the next round of the process, where we re-try and build on what we previously learned.

Unfortunately, too many starry-eyed entrepreneurs firmly believe that one six-week design engagement will give them a surefire formula for commercial success. It works sometimes, but oftentimes the end result is not what the creator had initially expected it to be.

Instead of going to a design agency and demanding a working prototype “in six weeks”, perhaps we should re-think our approach. Maybe do a one-week design sprint to nail down the prototype that we’re going to build and then spend five weeks building that.

Maybe instead of setting a deadline, set alternative measurable goals such as “We need 75% of our user testing candidates to accomplish this task in under a minute.” Once you get to a prototype that accomplishes that, the engagement is done.

“Create an onboarding experience engaging enough that 80% of our users enter their email at the end of it.” Not only does this help the client, but the designer also feels rewarded for doing the best work that they possibly could, not simply the best they could come up with in the given timeframe.

Agile processes may work great for managing code-based workflows, but managing the creative process requires a flexible approach that isn’t time-dependent and relies instead on quantifiable goals which, when completed, signify the end of the project.

It’s not a perfect system (projects can extend too long or awkwardly end in a few days), but it requires a level of trust between the client and the designer to “get it right.” It also encourages everyone to trust in the design process, as opposed to treating creativity like a stream of inspiration that will certainly arrive before an arbitrary date.