The Rant
The next time they want me to do creativity on a schedule I'm gonna do a Peter Pan!
Submitted by Seneca » Sat 18-Feb-2012, 11:08Subject Area: Project ManagementKeywords: creativity, estimating, creative process, schedule, Peter Pan, design | 17 member ratings |
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Who do these Management dudes think they're kidding. Creativity can't be done on a schedule.
It annoys the hell out of me. Sitting in these planning meetings trying to estimate how long it's going to take to develop this world beating killer app.
Don't they understand that creative ideas just don't appear on schedule? Ideas form through an endless cycle of invention and destruction.
Just talking about a creative idea to a management "suit" can kill it. Ideas are always half-baked when they're new. Worse - any idea sounds good after a few beers. In the morning you just throw them away and start again. Hemingway said that the first draft of anything is garbage - how true is that.
At the outset we never know how many cycles of creation and destruction we're going to go through before we hit something of value. Maybe never. Hah!
And then they get so disappointed when we don't come in on schedule. And they come down hard on us. On us! The people who constitute the core (and only) means of production in this ideas factory!
Two thousand years ago the Greeks figured out that: "A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners."
And so they want to punish us for the practical realities of the creative process?
What part of this don't they understand?
So next time an angry "suit" bails me up and wants to know about my "design directions" and "complete-by dates" I'm gonna do a Peter Pan. You know:
Wendy Darling asks Peter Pan the way to Neverland. He answers, "Follow the second star on the right and on till dawn."
Yeah that should do it!
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