What do Swiss trains and creativity have in common?
An example of a product packaging design process in Skore app.
What?! a process to limit my creativity? I quit!!!!
There is almost a philosophical opposition to processes in some marketing teams. Nevertheless, those who embraces processes them don’t seem to do that bad. What happened? First. Let’s go in the Swiss Alps.
What do Swiss trains and creativity have in common?
Most trains in Switzerland are scheduled with a “regular interval” timetable. A given train will leave every day at 11:36, 12:36, 13:36, etc. Does it hinder or foster creativity? Probably the later! The schedule is predictable and reliable. I can focus on what I do best and know that a train will be there when I expect it.
A good process serves the same purpose: make the business predictable about what will happen next, so we can all follow a similar track: we can all work together.
When working with customer my ambition is to get various departments work together. Better.
They all need a common understanding of what a team will deliver and when. Good processes describe just that. Good processes don’t need to go in too much detail on how the work is done. Team members will certainly know how to proceed.
Benefits of processes for creative teams
- Describing different phases at a high level, so that anyone can understand them (see picture above or open the full process)
Getting alignment helps maintaining consistency accross a variety of teams, phasing projects so they are not all requiring validation at the same time, planning resources, etc.
- Highlighting the approval steps. We made the approval steps orange with a flag so they stand out.
A consistency in the approval process creates shows what is the important thing to focus on.
- Clarifying the Roles & Responsibilities in the design process between the Marketing Manager, the Packaging Design Specialist and the Agency working with them
How is it done in Skore app ?
- First, I had mapped all the activities on a single “flat” diagram to see everyhing at once
- I usually start with the activities before adding the responsibilities
- I added icons to make the process more… visual
- Then I created the high level view (the 3 boxes) and pushed the content in the detailed views
- Then I customize the stylesheet to match the (virtual) customer brand colors