Once I was told, “Gosh, you talk about process a lot.”
It’s true. In the absence of clear processes and rationale, I’ll absolutely work to define them.
My work has broadened well beyond “just” design, content, and strategy work to include the work about the work. This initially showed up in business development (BD) or me, when I quickly learned the ropes on how to define offerings and sell them well. It’s a skill I picked up quickly and loved.
When I started in BD my employer at the time was just starting to scale, but didn’t have a lot of repeatable processes in place. I had a lot of questions. When did we follow up with people? How did we prioritize pitches? Did we do spec work? Who was the point of contact? Do we have a standard set of slides we use? Some of these things were answered and some weren’t. So, I worked with my boss at the time to define them. We developed a strong, end-to-end BD process that helped us focus on the important stuff.
And that’s why I talk process so much: the important stuff. Yes, the process is important. But should a designer be spending her time rewriting the way we talk about our work every time we do a pitch? Probably not. Should a strategist change the format of a case study every single time? I doubt it. Do we need to do things like assign a pitch lead? Yes. Do we need to use a few standard credential deck pieces? Yes. We do this because it removes doubt, reduces confusion, and keeps us all focused.
My love of this concept grew as I established and scaled practices and teams. Do we need to redefine how we do a content inventory every time we do it? No. Do we need to redefine our strategic deck format every time? No. How about the way we run a messaging workshop? No. In those cases I worked hard to research and build out the infrastructure, process, and plumbing so we can spend time on more interesting stuff.
In lieu of a content inventory rethink, should we explore and define the bigger audience-driven opportunities for content? Yes! Instead of redoing the deck again, can we just come up with a great story? Absolutely!
Don’t get me wrong: there is immense value in process and repeatability. Immense. That’s why I love it so – the value shows up when the team is focused on the right challenges and the right questions and the right problems.