Over the years I refined my creative process which I now use for every project. I feel the process helps to develop more feasible products and create faster and higher-quality results. When clients ask to cut some of the phases, or give pressure to rush through the project, it always results into a creative blockage during the project and a lost of valuable time.
Before I understood this I was having troubles with creativity throughout my adult life. Creativity conflicted with the constant need to be critical about myself and my ideas. I didn’t understand that creativity is something that every designer and artist sometimes struggles with. Ben Burns from The Futur (https://thefutur.com/) made a series on how he struggles with the creative process, and talks with many well-known designers that speak about the same topic. The design phases help you to push through this process, and when you don’t give up you will often find success.
Chris Do, the founder of the Futur, has given presentations and made many videos on the creative process. In a video called: ‘’Get Clear & Avoid Creative Block’’ He talks about the importance of having a compass to reach the project’s goal. The only way to achieve this compass, especially in the creative service industry, is to sit with clients and understand what their goal actually is. Often they are obsessed with their own ideas and get distracted from the original goal. When you are inside of a company and work with a team its still important to sit down and have this discussion.
One of the first moments that started this realization, was when I read the book called ''Creative Confidence'' by Tom and David Kelley. The two brother’s and IDEO founders describe how they solved the recurring problem of designers (who have worked at their company) and students (who have studied at their school), claiming they are not creative. To which Tom and David always say that creativity is not something you are born with, and that it's something you can learn. I think about this almost daily now, when I look at my 3 year old son that has imagination for ten, and hope that as a parent I will be able to help my children contain this creativity.
In a book that I read recently by James Webb Young, called ''A Technique for Producing Ideas'' I found a great metaphor of why this process works. James concluded that the process works because the production of ideas is just as definite a process as the production of a vehicle; that the production of ideas, too, runs on an assembly line. Meaning that the creative process can be learned and controlled. This aligns with Tom and David Kelley's conclusion that the the creative process can be learned by anyone.
I hope this blog helped to understand the work and discipline I had to put into developing my process. Sometimes my clients only see the ''Eureka, I have it!'' moment, but it's my job to describe the process and help them understand the value we are able to provide.
In a future blog I will share a full summary of my process, which was specifically adjusted for developing E-bikes, but hopefully can be transferred to other situations as well.
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