We took the exact opposite approach, which was to say to each studio, “You may look at the tools that the other has, you may use them if you want, but the choice is entirely yours.” They each have a development group that’s coming up with different ideas, but because we said, “You don’t have to take ideas from anybody else,” they felt freer to talk with each other.
The underlying hardware keeps changing, the software keeps changing, everything’s changing. So the best thing we can have is different groups pursuing different ideas and then sharing them. And it helps it move faster. (Ed Catmull)
The standard approach implies that a singular way of working applies across the entire firm, but that this is usually thought to mean standard work processes, standard tools, standard procedures, all in order to generate efficiencies through application of singular 'best practice'. After all, how could there be more than one 'best practice' for any particular activity.
However Catmull takes an opposite view of grand unified processes, consolidation, and standardisation around narrow tool-sets, skills, knowledge niches, and perhaps most difficult homogeneity in organisational approach. Catmull's thesis is that 'standard' approaches are inferior, simplifying management and control through standardised process is the wrong way to think about managing creatives and digital design.
Catmull and John Lasseter took this 'exact opposite' approach, aiming instead to preserve independence, autonomy, local ownership of responsibilities. In a way, you might think of this, instead of it leading to divergence and organisational chaos, that it leads to a deeper kind of unity, where the 'standard' they apply is their 'attitude' rather than the material manifestations of organisation. Therefore the various groups, studios, sub-studios, and skunk-works are encouraged in a sense to go their own ways, develop and use diverse work tools and approaches; all so long as they share what they know, learn about what others a doing, and if interested, engage with those they want to to adapt and adopt new tools and systems.
I sense that rather than having an opposite view of standards, what they have is a different view of what to standardise, in this case their values, orientation, attitude, stances towards each other and how they engage within their corporate communities. This is perhaps evidenced by his statements about project execution around The Good Dinosaur where he dismisses the idea that slipping a project release date is a bad thing or that projects can somehow be managed such that they never encounter serious obstacles.
One thing I don’t believe in is the notion of a perfect process. Our goal isn’t to prevent all the problems; our goal is making good movies.
