Back in 2009, as I was interviewing people for the book I published last week, Merchants of Virtue, I discovered that designing and developing a new book has a lot in common with designing and developing a new chair.

In one of my interviews, I talked with Tom Niergarth, head of New Product Commercialization at Herman Miller, Inc., the subject of the book. I was curious about how new product development was managed. Tom told me that Herman Miller engineers mark development milestones with documents called “deliverables.” A series of must-do development tasks has been translated into a series of engineering documents. This is the key: Only the delivery of the specified documents constitute accomplishment. A lot of furious activity does not.

I realized the Herman Miller chair-development process provided a structure for running all kinds of creative processes, including the creative process of book development. The completion of deliverables requires finishing a discrete and important piece of a multi-step project. Each deliverable gives tangible evidence of progress. No document, no accomplishment, no pats on the back.

The deliverables approach is remarkably similar to the “paper trail” approach I recommend for books. Each piece in the paper trail marks a development milestone. A marketing positioning deliverable at Herman Miller, for example, is akin to the  “positioning journal” I recommend for book development. See my earlier post.

I have since realized something else. I once talked with authors about a book’s “creative process” as if the emphasis should be put on “creative,” not on “process.” I had it backwards. The emphasis should fall on “process.” Niergarth’s point: Clarity in process requires clarity in thinking.  Clarity in thinking yields clarity in product.  That’s just as true for nonfiction book development as for furniture development.

Are you a creative person or a process person? If you’re an author, you’re both. When people talk about writing being a “craft,” I believe they are referring to the repeatable process you use to deliver great results.  Creativity still remains key, although it remains not fully controllable. But process is something anyone can learn, can learn to master, and can learn to follow reliably and with control. That’s what we all need when facing the daunting task of writing a book.

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