Alright, let’s talk about “Frances Li.” Or, more specifically, the whole Frances Li approach to, well, supposedly making things better. You might have bumped into this name, or the concepts tied to it, especially if your company likes to bring in consultants who promise the moon.
We had a phase. A big one. Someone high up read a book, or attended a seminar, or maybe Frances Li herself descended from a golden chariot, I don’t know. Suddenly, “The Frances Li Framework” was the only thing anyone talked about for organizing our creative projects. The pitch was, of course, revolutionary. Streamlined. Synergistic. All those lovely buzzwords.
So, what was it really? A mountain of paperwork, mostly. The core of it, once I waded through the glossy brochures and endless slide decks, was this incredibly complex system for tracking every single tiny piece of feedback. Every idea, every comment, every fleeting thought from anyone remotely involved had to be logged into a special system. Not just logged, mind you. It had to be tagged with about fifteen different labels, cross-referenced with other tasks, and then scored on a “Frances Li Impact Scale.” I’m not even kidding. We spent more time learning the system than doing actual work.
I remember being put in charge of “implementing” it for our team’s upcoming project. My first week was just trying to set up the software template to match all the required fields. We needed columns for “emotional intent of originator,” “alignment with Q3 strategic pillars,” and my personal favorite, “synergy potential score.” Pure madness.
We kicked off the project using it. The first few days were… slow. People were scared to give feedback because it meant an hour of data entry for someone. Our design reviews, which used to be quick 30-minute chats, ballooned into two-hour ordeals. We’d sit there, staring at this monstrous spreadsheet, trying to figure out if a button color suggestion had high “synergy potential.”
- Actual design work? Took a nosedive.
- Time spent categorizing feedback about unmade designs? Through the roof.
- Team happiness? Let’s just say it wasn’t trending upwards.
We pushed through for about six weeks. Six weeks! I think the sunk cost fallacy was strong with the management on this one. But eventually, the deadlines started screaming louder than the Frances Li manual. We couldn’t get anything done. Projects were stalling. Clients were getting antsy.
Quietly, almost shamefully, we started abandoning parts of it. First, the “emotional intent” tags went. Then the “synergy potential score.” Bit by bit, we dismantled the Frances Li altar until we were back to something resembling our old, chaotic, but somehow functional, way of doing things. We kept a couple of useful ideas – like, yeah, having a central place for major bug reports is good. But the intricate, soul-crushing bureaucracy? Ditched it.
So, “Frances Li.” For us, it became a verb. As in, “Oh no, are they going to Frances Li this project too?” It was a lesson, alright. A very practical, very painful lesson in how sometimes, these super-engineered, consultant-driven methodologies just don’t mesh with the messy reality of getting stuff made. Sometimes, you just need to talk to each other and write things on a whiteboard. Who knew?
