Planning vs. Executing. 20:80? 80:20?

I used to work in a fairly ad-hoc manner - relying on creative spurts and improvising. As a creative, I almost believed it would be a shame to plan and strategize. Today, I can’t possibly overstate the value of collaborative planning, frameworks, and data to guide projects. Sure, we improvise along the way - but at least planning helps build that basic blueprint for myself and my team to constantly stay aligned. That, honestly, makes execution far more effective. So, it’s about 70:30 for me.

Intuition can be great. Intuition can also just be biased.

Intuition is great. Intuition is also biased. Whether it be for ad campaigns, mobile app design decisions, or plans on how best to execute a social impact project at the grass-root level, I’ve made mistakes by following my gut. Now, of course, given timelines, other constraints, or just the practicality of not trying to question everything - going with the gut can keep project machinery moving. But every project or product has some big decisions, some fundamentals that one really should get right. Here’s where user-experience practices have, overtime, found a prominent space in my professional toolkit.

Not every business problem can, nor should, be solved with the shiniest technology out there.

When I first began to get interested in new technologies - from simple landing page design tools to new virtual reality tools and everything in the middle, I’d feel the urge to force that new tech to a brand’s problem. Reigning in that personal excitement’s helped pick and choose the right tools to solve the right problems, and sustain focus on what’s needed rather than just getting to have some fun with new learnings and tech. Oh, but when I get lucky enough that the tech I want to work with just happens to be a beautiful fit to solve a brand’s problem - that’s just unreal :D