Notes from December 2019 Meetup: Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull

The UX Book Club of Chicago met on December 11, 2019, to discuss Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace.

Synopsis

Creativity, Inc. is a creative business management book co-written by former Pixar president Ed Catmull and author Amy Wallace. The book is marketed as a “manual for anyone that strives for originality” by describing the ins-and-outs of Pixar’s creative culture. Catmull recounts how he started his career with a passion to legitimize computer animation, through his time at Lucasfilms, Pixar’s inception, into its tumultuous period under Steve Jobs leading up to the release of Toy Story. Catmull reflects on the challenges throughout Pixar’s growth and his learnings. The authors discuss topics such as managing a growing creative team, Pixar’s steering committee called “Braintrusts”, accepting failure, the difference between honesty and candor, and enabling employees to fix issues in the company culture. Catmull also describes his experience of Disney’s acquisition of Pixar and his initial leadership approach for Disney Animation.

Themes from the discussion

Management

Some members expected the book to be more about Pixar’s creative process than management. Members agreed the book helped build empathy for their managers. The group discussed how Ed Catmull felt more and more removed as his team grew. Catmull noticed his employees edited themselves more, were less open and hid more of their snark from him. Attendees recognized this phenomenon and remarked that proactively sharing info would help manage up.

A member reflected that doing good work took a lot of work. The group discussed how outside management consultants are not a magic bullet and commended Pixar for facing company culture problems head-on. Pixar’s “Notes Day”, for example, invited all employees to identify cultural issues and work together to fix them.

One member recommended Chicago Camps as a resource for design managers.

Candor

Members appreciated Catmull’s suggestion for candor in a culture. Catmull explained candor as frankness with reservation and a desire to help a situation. He states that full honesty provides more information than is helpful and can be detrimental to relationships. Book club members also found Catmull’s “elevator” metaphor helpful. The author likens tailoring feedback for different situations like getting off an elevator on different floors of a building.

Members discussed how candor could be freeing and wondered what it would take to have candor in an organization. Many agreed that it would take a healthy level of trust and safety. A member mentioned that trust is difficult to gain and easy to break. Another noted that safety has to be demonstrated, not just spoken about. A member speculated that the best way to start a culture for candor would be modeling the behavior.

Feedback and Design Critiques

The group discussed the author’s perspectives on feedback. Catmull emphasized the importance of sharing incomplete work. Members agreed that designers should fail fast and early by presenting unfinished designs with cohorts. Several discussed how the process of sharing and critiquing work can build trust and make presenting easier.

The group compared different design critiques they had participated in. A member commented that good feedback should compel someone to fix the problem by asking the right questions. Several relayed stories of unproductive critiques. Someone noted how people feel obligated to participate though they don’t think through the impact of their feedback. Others relayed their experiences of receiving feedback at the wrong time, like right before shipping a design.

Members offered up ideas for more productive critiques. One mentioned facilitators helped guide the discussion. A few Mozilla employees talked briefly about the structure of their design critiques. A designer presents their work, and then the audience can ask clarifying questions but not start critiquing. The audience is required to point out what is working before noting what isn’t working. Opinions are only solicited at the end, and the presenter may choose not to ask for opinions.

Mozilla’s critique process is open source and available here.

Braintrusts

A major tenant of Pixar’s culture is presenting work to the “Braintrust”. Similar to design critiques, storytellers share unfinished work to a group of respected experts. The experts help diagnose the problem without providing a specific solution or direction. The Braintrust helps steer a director towards creating something new, not just derivative.

Few members had experienced a group like this in their work. A member likened it to grad school where they would receive more consultatory feedback — “have you considered x?”.One person likened user researchers to a Braintrust as researchers could help identify and diagnose problems. Another mentioned how they had a design liaison in their organization that sat between different teams. The design liaison would help compare similar solves across brands. They were viewed as an expert because they saw all the variants of experiences.

Members also saw the Braintrust as being potentially problematic. As it was described in the book, the Braintrust seemed like a fairly homogenous group of people. Many agreed that feedback should come from a variety of viewpoints. Others wondered how the Braintrust worked for people with varied feedback styles.

Pixar Culture

Book club discussed other facets of Pixar’s culture mentioned in the book. Members discussed how Pixar provided employees with relative freedom and limited rule creation. The group agreed that creating rules kills culture and often feels reactionary. Some felt like managers create rules to distance themselves from dealing with a problem.

Many admired how Pixar embraced failure. Some members had experienced cultures where failure was chastized which created fear. As described in the book, Pixar managers did not shame individuals and instead focused on fixing the problem. A member thought this enabled teams to iterate together because it removed blame from an individual.

However, some found the book a little too fantastical to be true. They felt there might be details missing from the anecdote about an employee accidentally deleting Toy Story 2, where the authors mostly focused on the recovery of the file.

How does Creativity, Inc. apply to UX?

When asked if the book was relevant for the UX field, several contemplated if most software design isn’t necessarily creative in the same way as film making. Catmull’s culture emphasized creating something new that wasn’t derivative. A member proposed that derivative design is often good design because a user can more easily understand and learn it. Another member thought service design can be more creative because it worked with an unknown future and storytelling. While UX design might not be analogous to Pixar, members felt that they could draw from the same toolset for creative problem-solving.