The Process Engineering Hammer

Process is a wonderful thing.  In moderation.  At its best, process helps answers the question: If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?  At its worst, process can stifle company growth and innovation. 

 How many times have you seen this happen in a company?  Early on, it's all hands on deck; just get it done.  After a while, as the company grows and gets more complex, disasters start happening due to everybody doing things on the fly.  A meeting is held: processes are needed to ensure that the recent disasters don't happen again.  A group of people that are interested in process get together and start putting out task lists, checkpoints and documentation requirements.  And. Business. Slows. Down.  New ideas that used to take weeks to develop suddenly take months.  The best thinkers are spending more time filling out forms than thinking. 

 This is not good process.  I've seen it happen in all different kinds of businesses and organizations. It's part of the cyclical nature of centralized control and de-centralized decision-making that companies go through during their lifecycle.  But it doesn't have to be this way.

 Great process is a balance between rigor and adaptability, planning and working, documenting and doing.  Use process when necessary and appropriate.  Allow improvisation and judgment when possible.  Keep any process to the minimum necessary to accomplish the goals; anything beyond that is just a waste of time.  In short: develop processes with a light touch.

 Properly done, process can actually save time and increase innovation.  Process that forces groups to do some short, rigorous thinking about the end-to-end project and its risk factors can help weed out half-baked ideas. Or pull the plug on an idea that looked good initially but starts to prove to be a waste of time, thus releasing the team to work on more promising ideas.  It can also help ensure that a job is done right, saving rework time. 

 So, who should be in charge of process development?  Be careful of enthusiasts. To paraphrase an old saying: when you have a process engineering hammer, all the world is a nail.  In fact, I've always felt that the best person to lead process development is someone that is good at it, but doesn't really like it.

 If you have any questions about this article or process development, or would like to talk about how to develop processes that enable and energize your business, contact me at 617-855-5439 or jmarcos@complexityclarified.com.

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