How does an car engine produce 300 horsepower in a matter of seconds from so many moving metal parts? How is an army of ants able to build great massive labyrinths to protect their queen and themselves from predators? How is a coach able to get he the most of his players to produce a championship team? They all require some form of process that aligns all the moving parts into a well synced and functioning engine. How well that process is designed, tuned and maintained determines how efficient it is.
I’ve been on numerous design teams over my career – including managing my own UX practice. And in each experience, process is always a topic of conversation. Why? One, we by nature don’t like to follow process or rules. We like to believe creativity shouldn’t have rules. Two, we can always fault the lack of process or adherence to process for why things go wrong. “It’s not my fault. We don’t have a good process!’
The reality is that in any organization there is a process being followed. Sometimes they feel chaotic or too abstract. And that’s mainly because process is left to intuition and not clearly defined or coached.
Of course the natural consequence for any frustrated project team is to define a process that you can live with. Where do you begin? What do you need? I’m not going to define process here. But I’ll give you a few suggestions when you are faced with this challenge.
Assign a process leader: The process leader would act as the coach to instill good process practices, find opportunities to refine, add or eliminate steps. The process leader is also in charge to train new employees. Without a committed leader process will quickly fall apart from a lack of commitment.
Have clear roles: Just like a high performance team each player has a specific role and task. By being clear of what they are team members know what they are responsible for and who they are dependent on to complete an aspect of a job.
Keep it simple: Most processes fail because they are perceived as burdensome and time consuming. They require too many stakeholders to be involved, too many phases, deliverables and tasks. This often results in project estimates that are too big, too many dependencies to control, cost over runs, and inefficient communication within the teams. A process that is complicated is also difficult to coach and follow.
Process is not about you: Many times I see people scream for process to validate their own value on the team. For example, ‘My document never gets read’, ‘I’m not included early enough or later in the process.’ Yes, process can help resolve some of these issues but more so as a consequence of a good solid framework. It has to be team focused.
Be clear why you need process and design it accordingly: Process can help manage costs, over-runs and inefficiencies. Process can help with managing client expectations or internal communications. Depending on what is your business challenge the process could take any form. If the objective and value of process isn’t clear you may end up with something that is not needed.
Get stakeholder buy-in: At the end of the day you are influencing the way the business operates. Go back to the objective of defining a process. This objective must directly speak to the needs of the business and its managing stakeholders. If it doesn’t it won’t matter if it’s purple or red. They won’t buy into it and consider it a waste of time.
Take into account the kind of work you do: Would you use a sledgehammer on a finishing nail? Of course not. Process is a tool. It’s a means to an end. Therefore what process you define must suit your work. If your work is mainly creating marketing micro-sites don’t go into something like AGILE. And don’t be seduced into the need to create massive requirement docs. There’s no value in that.
Don’t try to solve everything with process: I’ve found it better to have a workable framework that is agile (not AGILE) enough to accommodate any type of work. Too rigid of a process (unless absolutely necessary) can create crises unnecessarily. This can piss clients off.
Steal it, don’t re-invent the proverbial wheel: Process is process. No one is ‘inventing’ process nowadays that didn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago. There are 4-5 basic phases. Adopt them and you’ll be fine. Try to ‘invent’ something from scratch is a complete waste of time.
Be accountable: Once your process is in place make sure your team buys it and learns to be accountable for when it fails. And be flexible to change the process if something doesn’t work.
Process is not a marketing differentiator!: Especially if your process is broken.
Being able to influence your organization this way is hugely rewarding. Keep in mind process is an iterative thing and takes time to implement, train and refine. Try to avoid creating a process that hinders your creative process or slows you down. Your team will abandon it quickly. Once it has been established and practiced regularly process should become intuitive and natural. Good luck.
