Process

This is the written script of Halftime, episode 79 of the Makers of Sport® podcast. Halftime was a short show on the off weeks between interviews where I wrote and read on topics in professionalism, entrepreneurship and business for creatives in sport. The episode aired in June 2016; the audio is on SoundCloud. The show's opening and closing announcements are trimmed here.

As for this week’s Halftime, I’m going to discuss process. You hear the world a lot, especially in the design industry, as well as the sports industry.

Search Medium and you’ll find hundreds of articles on it. Listen to coach or player interviews and you’ll hear it referenced almost daily.

There are so many books, blog posts and videos about process. Each person seems to have their own definition. The dictionary defines process as a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.

Notable college football coach Nick Saban, who just might be the most successful college football coach of all time at the University of Alabama, has often been quoted saying “respect the process”. His actions are steps taken to build a sustainable football program in the ever-evolving world of big-time college football, and put together individual players, coaches and game strategies to win national championships; or at the very least, be among those in the running year in and year out.

Culture plays a big role in process as well. I have discussed culture previously in the Weekend Reads newsletter and the importance of it. College basketball coach Greg McDermott, also father of Chicago Bull Doug McDermott who had a great NCAA tournament run a few years ago, states that “building a championship culture is process”.

Greg is the head coach of Creighton Men’s Basketball, a mid-major team from Omaha, Nebraska that plays in The Big East. He also happens to know a thing or two about championship culture as the Creighton Bluejays have been a part of 19 NCAA Tournament appearances, 21 league titles and 12 conference tournament titles.

So there’s no question the importance of process in sports. Wins don’t happen without it. Champions don’t happen without. There isn’t luck involved. But a building and training process.

Process is everywhere though. The most successful companies, organizations, or individuals have a processes that they have perfected and experimented with over time that they adhere to.

Having a process is part of an overall strategy. It’s strategic in nature. It helps one achieve or build something overtime by doing repetitive, proven-to-work things. It also helps build trust through consistency and planning. It helps one begin where they do not know how to begin.

Process can even be mundane though. In one of my favorite books which I highly recommend called The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield, the author often discusses the resistance—or the invisible enemy of creativity that tries to prevent us from long-term growth, health or integrity by distracting us with immediate gratification. Within the book, Pressfield discusses the differences between amateurs and professionals, albeit harsh, as the ones that play for fun versus the ones that play for keeps. He states that professionals are doing their thing 7 days per week and amateurs are weekend warriors.

I don’t believe this is to be taken literally to limit one from creating side projects and such. It’s more metaphorical. In the creative process we often here about blank screen syndrome or creative block. Waiting to create when inspiration strikes. To Pressfield, the professional performs the mundane task each day of sitting down and beginning to work, the inspiration will strike. Not the other way around.

This is key to the creative process for designers or commercial creators, since what we do is often involved with business and can’t always be created “when we feel inspired”. Essentially being a professional is about seeking order and not tolerating disorder. This is synonymous with process.

Processes are about limiting disorder. And creative process as defined by 99u, who also happens to have an entire section of their website devoted to the topic, is the ability or power to create and move experiences and knowledge into ideas.

But in addition to creative processes, there are project management processes mixed in when it comes to freelancing, running a design studio or even an in-house creative department.

These types of processes are often the most vital when it comes to the working with the outside world, the outside world being non-creatives, clients or other associates.

A process in this case is about providing comfort and something to point to when the going gets to tough as something to adhere to.

If you’re hiring a services professional, say a roofer, and that roofer has a clearly defined process of how they are going to approach their work on your house, and they are a little more expensive than a roofer that has no clearly defined process and will just show up and get the job done. Don’t you feel a little more comfortable paying a bit more for the roofer that has a clearly defined working and business process? I do. It seems that roofer has done this before and this isn’t necessarily a hobby for them making an extra buck.

Joe Bosack of Joe Bosack & Company has told me many times over his years doing sports branding work for universities around the U.S. that having a process has saved his company and the project. His process is discussed with clients up front so they are well aware of how things will work. If they try to move outside of the scope of the project or throw a curveball in timelines, Joe can point to his process that they all agreed on. Trust the process. This is part of Joe’s mantra when it comes to sports branding work.

I myself can share a story about a project I accepted recently. It’s a 30+ thousand dollar web design project and the folks I’m working with aren’t the most tech savvy individuals. But from lead generation, to proposal to now actually working this particular client, I have deliberately shared how the process of creating this project will go in an effort to comfort them.

In pitch mode of this project, the client was worried I was not in the same state as them. In fact, we are many states away from another. But, I used an example of how my process is going to provide them comfort and they aren’t working with a spring chicken or snake oil salesman here. Recently, I had the engine replaced in my truck. I drive a 2004 Ford F-150. I had this truck since 2005 and I absolutely am in love with it. But, after years of hard driving and normal wear & tear, I had to have the engine replaced. I used a guy in the town I live in who came from a recommendation and who builds drag racing cars to replace my engine after I ordered a new engine from an after market place. I was uncomfortable the entire time. I didn’t know this guy, and here I am paying him $5,000 to replace my engine. I don’t know much about cars. It’s probably the one thing that should unequivocally be grounds of revoking my man card as a Southern American. So basically I sat for two months with little to no updates about my truck and wondering whether I was getting screwed. I should have just taken it to the dealership, but there i was afraid of price gouging as well. Finally, it showed up and all was well. I was lucky.

I explained this to the client lead and how I can empathize with them in not knowing much about an industry yet forking out quite a big fee to pay for services in that industry. For this exact reason, I have a process, where I can point to updates in Basecamp, to-do lists shared with the client, constant communication and oversharing on Slack. That way even though they won’t know exactly what me and my developers are discussing, they’ll at least know that the project is moving along and it isn’t sitting static for a last minute throw-together.

Having a defined process can win you work over other designers. Think about how many design studio or agency websites where you see a process defined on the site. If publishing that process didn’t win work, we wouldn’t see so many agencies do it.

If you’re an in-house designer. Having a public process can keep folks from dropping work on you that is due immediately. Once they understand that there is a process, maybe thing like job tickets, chronological order, revision phases and final delivery, perhaps they will begin to understand some of your value to the organization as more than just an in-house Kinkos.

One thing to note though in wrapping up. Defining your own process may take some experimentation. I recommend sitting down and thinking critically about your ideal design and business process and writing it down in a document for your own records. Once it’s written down, it becomes a bit more real and less made up as you go. Then you can refine project by project and client by client until you find something that works for you and sticking to it. Once you have that clearly defined process, you can decide when qualifying leads if a client is worth working with if they don’t want to stick to your process.

To reiterate, define your design and business process, write it down, iterate on it over time and stick to it on projects where clients agree to it. Once you do, you’ll begin to see the benefits of having a work process as well.