Approval Is The Process

Designs are approved. Functionality is approved. Content is approved. All production work is eventually approved by someone – usually the person paying for the work.

At iMarc we urge the client to involve all stakeholders in each approval process. Everyone who has any approval authority is begged to take part in the the entire process.

The design process is very fluid and interactive. Hundreds of design decisions are made on a single phone call.

We recently launched a website for the Harvard Clinical Research Center (HCRI). Early in the process HCRI mentioned that their work deals with technical publications and number crunching. However, their end goal is to help people. That last sentence had a ripple effect through the design and feature set.

Thankfully, HCRI's stakeholders were fully engaged throughout the entire process. What if the executive who held the ultimate approval authority wasn't part of this conversation? We might have built a people-centric website, only to have the missing stakeholder pop in and ask, "What are all these smiling people for? I want blue, not red. I want ones and zeros, not personalities."

If one stakeholder is left out of the process he or she is bound to request changes that go against conclusions the team already made. Often this person brings valuable criticism and information. However, if this input comes too late the active team members might be committed to their current direction.

Approval happens during the voyage, not at the final destination.