Managing Creativity-intensive Processes: Learning from Film and Visual Effects Production

Abstract

Creativity is of considerable importance to many organizations and can be seen as a core competitive factor in a variety of contemporary industries. Consequently, process managers are increasingly forced to ask questions such as: How can I successfully manage an organization without crushing creativity? In response to this challenge, we introduce the concept of creativity-aware process management. We propose a model of creativity-intensive processes which can be described as highly dependent on creativity, interdependent, complex, and inten- sively involving the client. We explain how creative organizations manage these processes in order to pursue both operational and creative process performance while simultaneously mitigating operational and creative risk. In doing so, we propose a set of guidelines that can support process managers in successfully managing creativity without systematically crushing it.We use the case of a leading Australian visual effects (VFX) company in order to illustrate our explanations.