Procedures and creativity

I have been working like mad in the past weeks. Couldn't get myself to writing stuff for this blog. But there's a curious thing I found out in the past years that I want to share. It's the paradox that creativity needs good procedures. Creativity thrives in structured, safe environments.

I read about this topic about a year ago, when the outcome of a study on this issue was covered by all newspapers at the time (here in the Netherlands that is). The surprise was that successful creative companies work well-ordered. The surprise was with the journalists and maybe most of the readers, but for me - no surprise at all.

In our software development team, we are constantly looking for better procedures to handle the standard tasks. We constantly search for better ordering of our working environment. This is engrained in our work structure, and we fight chaos everywhere. Still I might say that we make very creative products, we have literally hundreds of ideas still waiting to be implemented.

With the standard things handled in a standard way you can put your attention to where it pays off: in the areas that matter. No wasting of time and brain cycles on stuff that shouldn't take more than the absolute minimum of your time. If we all adhere, then we're a well-oiled machine producing with optimal performance. Another way to look at it is that good procedures give a feeling of security in the place you live in. We live in our software for a large part of the day. You want to feel safe in your home, you want to know where to find what, and what to do in what circumstances.

The weird thing is that the outside world often thinks of us as being the chaotic hackers. OK, we may not be as orderly as accountants, but in terms of structuring our work we are not bad at all. Oh maybe you are. In that case - change! It pays off.