1. What are the conditions for Creative work?

Are expectations reasonable? If we expect the highest level of performance for work that is by its nature to a large degree based on talent, are we truly securing the best talent to back up this expectation? Is the talent commensurate with what we are paying, and vice versa?

Is there creative management of resources, to ensure that the most suitable creative is assigned to each task? Creative is a much too wide a field, with too many disciplines, to be able to expect the same result from any and all creatives. Talents and capabilities vary greatly across the entire gamut.

Is there proper Estimation of the work involved, a proper Creative Brief, and a robust subsequent QA process? If not, then on what grounds are we setting creative expectations, and conducting evaluations? Without at least a Creative Brief, all expectations are inherently suspect, prone to second-guessing, and evaluations more difficult to take at face value.

Are creatives allowed to focus on their work, or are they pulled in other directions that may affect results?

2. How well is the Creative process understood?

The creative process is very rarely linear, like other tasks based on the scientific process. It is by its very nature iterative and zig-zagging,  requires more “back-and-forth”, and needs more calibration based on continuous feedback.

Creative output very rarely has a single right answer. It needs to be judged in context, and usually not by a single individual, as that gives too much room for personal interpretation, given that creative work is not grounded in facts. All creative output has a dimension of ambiguity which requires a certain degree of tolerance.

To say that creative requires “handholding” is really just another way of saying that creative requires dialogue, which is perfectly true, and an inescapable facet of all creative work. There are always too many possible solutions to forego this dialogue.

The Creative process is inherently subjective. Lots of different viewpoints need to be accounted for, and many of those viewpoints cannot even be meaningfully synthesized, but rely on an emotional response. For that reason, Creative evaluations are much more challenging, and less accurate or cut-and-dried. 

3. How is Creative work evaluated?

Is it based on tasks, goals and requirements that were properly articulated, and based on measurements of success that were properly quantified, stated and understood?

Was the evaluation subjective in any way, and/or does it rely to a larger extent on a single individual’s judgment? If yes, could this be mitigated, to ensure a broader consensus?

Ultimately, who has final say? Does this account for professional creative experience, and if not, why?