Timesheet Kills Creativity
One day my boss after a client meeting asked me a question. “Do yo know how our client makes money ?”. He wanted me to understand the client business model and how they succeed to generate revenues without working creatively. I said i didnt got you. He replied its Timesheet. They track everyone at every moment to generate revenue whether its a failed or hit product they made their own money.
For the same sake of understanding, if i ask same question to any design driven product company, advertising agencies. How do you make money ? Answer wont be the same timesheet. The way your business makes money is by selling time, then timesheets may be appropriate. But for agencies is not they sell creativity.
For example, a consulting firm might make money by giving advice an hour at a time. That’s what they are selling, time.
But most creative agencies or marketing departments make money by selling ideas. They make creative stuffs — digital and physical experiences. If you make money from your ideas or your designs, then you should be selling the value of those ideas. Not time.
Earning by hourly rates, the team will engage clients more and more hours to generate huge payments just to making them understand what they really want. And that ruins the creative mind by not to follow what client wants, just to fulfill what your business need from you.
Time is very easy way to measure collectively effort of our work. It’s easy to track an hour of effort and then we sell it for an average value based on company overhead with a bit of profit. That took us to old age when industrial revolution happened. We measured productivity based on how many hours an employee worked. The work was mechanical. Your value was based on how much work got done.
But now a days in large area, if you do creative job or business that runs on creativity, more time doesn’t always mean more value. We are now in the informational age. The currency is based on ideas not in hard work. If you understand how inspiration and ideas work, they don’t follow the clock.
Let’s go back to the question of how your business makes money. It depends upn the answer whether you are selling yourself a production house or creative agency. Timesheets are great for one, and terrible for the other.
A client buys your services because they want production, not ideas. Like a business in the industrial revolution, the more time you work, the more money you make. For this business model, just like a consulting firm, timesheets are an appropriate tool.
However, if you sell ideas to your stakeholders, then your business model should be focused on quality. This is usually the case for creative agencies, design boutiques, and internal creative teams who value their position as a creative partner.
Timesheets are great for one, and terrible for the other. Don’t compromise your creativity with the timesheet.