I'm mostly with Dave on the issue, although I wouldn't go so far to  
bring into geopolitical metaphors. Here's how I think of it:

Designer's have process, but designer's don't use process.

What does that mean? "Using" process often devolves into a paint by  
numbers type of way to solve problems for a designer. And in that  
regard, it's a waste of time and money to force designers to solve a  
particular problem in a particular way based on methods that are  
largely about construction or engineering. It doesn't matter to me  
what process it is, waterfall or agile, all of them push me to work  
in a way that limits my flexibility as a designer to solve problems  
however I need to solve them.

But the truth is, I do have processes. The difference though is that  
I own a variety of processes much like I own lots of paintbrushes,  
hammers, saws, pencils and rulers.  Processes don't own me, I own  
them. And I use whichever one I need to given the problem I'm  
presented with.

That is often a hard pill for most executives or managers to swallow,  
and I can't blame because it feels to them like a random approach to  
work that often needs more methodology, like schedules and deadlines  
with so much on the line business-wise. To compensate for that, I  
push prototypes as the means to make it easier for people to let me  
use whatever tools/processes I need to in order to solve the problem  
at hand. With a real prototype to interact with, see and evaluate,  
all that often matters in the end game for managers is that prototype  
is delivered in a timely and iterative manner. How I actually got  
there is often left to me to do, giving me the flexibility to use all  
the various tools and processes I have at my disposal.

-- 
Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422


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