Planning for inspriation

I know we've all heard the addage "failing to plan is planning to fail."

Poppycock!

Well at least to an extreme. Too many times I see people create process documents and ministry plans that are excellent but are unwilling to veer from them when inspiration comes.

Unwavering plans and rigid structures leave out room for the inspiration, creativity and the influence of the Holy Spirit. Some of the coolest things often happen by accident. For myself some of my best designs come from when something accidentally happens, when I clicked the wrong button and it was suddenly cool.

The question is how do we build room for inspiration into our plans? We have to create that space for the Holy Spirit and creativity and we DO need to plan.

For different disciplines that answer is going to be different. In the tech/production world it might be systems that allow greater flexibility at the 11th hour. For IT it might be processes and systems that allow greater freedom.

In communications I think it comes down to building policies that allow that flex. I know I'm guilty of not letting this work. I often have preconceived notions of what something should be. But we have to create structure that allows creativity to fill in the blanks.

At Perimeter we love spreadsheets, process docs, critical paths, you name it. As a creative my challenge is to work in those margins. To find something cool in the spreadsheet.