The evaluation stage of the creative process requires taking time to carefully appraise the significance and value of the proposed project before it has begun, during the process of creation, and after completion. At The Institute of Design at Stanford University, this aspect in the creative process is an integral part of design thinking, as described on its website page, Our Way of Working:
“We welcome our students with a methodology for innovation that combines creative and analytical approaches, and requires collaboration across disciplines. This process—which has been called design thinking—draws on methods from engineering and design, and combines them with ideas from the arts, tools from the social sciences, and insights from the business world. Our students learn this process together, and then personalize it, internalize it, and apply it to their own challenges.”
As James Taylor, MBA, FRSA, also notes:
“It’s the idea of going out to a small group of trusted friends and saying:
‘I’ve had this idea, what do you think about this?’
It is very important part because we only have a limited amount of time to do certain things. Often you find that people who are called the most ‘creative people’ are often very good at this stage, the evaluation stage. They have all these ideas, but they can use self-criticism and reflection to say, ‘These are the ones that have the most merit and that I’m going to work on.‘"
In an era when artists and designers are increasingly concerned with making a transformative impact on their world—beyond the shelves of stores or walls of galleries—collaboration has become a necessary and very effective part of the evaluation stage. At Stanford, they believe that design innovation lies at the crossroads of viable business, technological feasibility, and human values.
I agree.