You are your process
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “Oh, my work speaks for itself.” No, it doesn’t.
The work you do is an outcome: a writer creates a manuscript for an annual report, a UX designer creates a product interface, a doctor treats a patient, and an accountant completes a ledger.
In any of these examples, whether the outcome you’ve achieved is any good or not is determined by something bigger than the work itself.
Your work is defined by the process you’ve adopted to get the work done.
As a creative pro, it’s not enough to just have an understanding of your subject matter.
I like how Plutarch explains this (and I’m paraphrasing to skip over the stuffy language). Knowledge, he says, doesn’t come from just having an understanding of words or ideas: it comes from experiences we choose for ourselves in which we apply what we’ve learned.
Process is where you apply what you know and explain how you arrive at an outcome. It also happens to be how you go about selling that work to your client.
Your process has to perform three jobs properly.
It has to correctly define the problem you have been hired to solve.
It has to be able to explain the choices you’ve made (e.g., methods, tools and assumptions) in solving that problem.
And it has to have a way of measuring with meaningful data whether you succeeded in meeting your objectives.
Sticking to a process is the best predictor of a positive outcome: the kind that give you a sense of fulfilment and a bunch of happy clients.
Not having a process is the trademark of amateurs.
And what’s nearly as bad:: having a process but letting a client convince you to skip it…just this one time.
When you let that happen, not only does your work lack a framework, you are playing a game of chance with your reputation and your time. Over my career, I’ve seen plenty of fix-it cases: where I’m hired to repair someone’s else’s work that’s gone sideways. In every single one of those cases, the original project was engaged without having a process in place.
Know this: creative entrepreneurship is the domestication of your raw talents. Process is how you harness it, turning talent into a business.
Very best, Patrick
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