I’ve found that the creation of formal processes (or framework) is both a wonderful thing and a horrible thing. The key distinguishing features lies in the ability to remain creative in spite of formalization and standardization.
I know that for myself, process is a necessity. Without my task lists, calendars and diagrams that depict the steps in an event, I lose all focus and steps are left out. However, where I use process to organize the stages of the creative process, some people use it to avoid the creative process altogether.
A process is not meant to suck the life out of doing something, it’s meant to give the person doing the task freedom to operate creatively in all steps outside of the process or framework.
What processes do you use? I have a process for nearly everything, but I never encounter a situation where the process takes away my ability to think outside the process…if that makes sense?