But regardless of the nature of your client and the complexity of their project, the process should remain the same.
By breaking a project down into distinct phases, each with defined beginning and endpoints, you create logical breaks for review and decision making.
Reinventing the process each time in order to cut costs can create substantial risks to the project, and negate any long-term benefits.
Larger firms may follow a controlled and documented process, such as PRINCE2, whilst smaller agencies may have a simple five-stage plan, but in either case having a structured process appropriate to the task provides competitive advantage by:
- assuring that a proven method is being used to achieve business results;
- sharing the understanding of the time/cost/quality required;
- creating trust and confidence in the project team;
- positioning project management as smart, efficient and cost-effective;
- building credibility for the proposed creative solutions; and
- setting and managing expectations for the process.
However it is expressed, the design process can be seen as just a more complex version of the simple ‘story hill’ that is taught in primary school.
You need a beginning, a middle and an end, and within that you need to ask what needs to happen (and in what order) and how are things resolved?
But because the process is just the process, you still need a creative spark, intuition or leap of faith to bring it to life.
Having a structure in place lessens the background ‘noise’ and creates the space in which creative thinking can thrive.
