Vacuosity

Due Process

How many processes does one little design department need? Seriously.

Right now I am responsible for revising our invoice payment process, ensuring we adhere to the corporate procurement process, and implementing the brand governance process. There are more process issues to come.

This is what a corporate structure does. This is what stifles creativity, originality, and innovation. Or worse, tries to define a process for achieving creativity, originality, and innovation.

I'm not talking about the age-old prejudice of designers against the suits; that they are the enemy and they just don't "get it". Neither am I asking for liberties that render a creative studio unaccountable for its own business value. I am talking about a corporation so buried in its own bureaucracy that it is literally prevented it from fulfilling its purpose. It's not the people that don't get it, it's the organization.

But it's the people too. The universities are churning them out by the thousands: BAs and MBAs who leave with a vast array of knowledge, intricate understand of business processes, project management disciplines, but no real critical analysis ability. No inclination to question whether this meeting, this set of guidelines, this process is truly necessary. No, it's: strategize, plan, revise, test, iterate, test, tweek, approve, implement, monitor, data-mine, analyze....strategize. All of it to kowtow to the motivating principles of profitable enterprise: time, money, and let's not forget fear. Again, I refer not to specific individuals, but to the overriding mentality instilled in the tender minds of the naive youth. We absorb it all, and think "Yes, that is right and good."

Eventually, corporations might just hang themselves with their own red tape. C'mon, I can dream can't I?

posted by David @ 1:12 a.m.