Process: a love-hate relationship
I hate process, don’t you? It can get in the way, slow you down and make simple tasks over complicated. At least that is how I feel about it at times and I suspect I am not the only one who does. In business, and particularly in my industry of software engineering, we are surrounded by processes – business, ISO, development, testing and deployment processes… to name just a few. The actions they describe are often time consuming to follow. Surely we don’t need all of these.
Did you know that there is an ISO process for making tea? There is – seriously! ISO 3103 describes a standardised method for brewing tea:
“The method consists in extracting of soluble substances in dried tea leaf, containing in a porcelain or earthenware pot, by means of freshly boiling water, pouring of the liquor into a white porcelain or earthenware bowl, examination of the organoleptic properties of the infused leaf, and of the liquid with or without milk, or both.”
You would think that if there is anything that tells us that defining processes has gone too far, surely it is this. But in many ways, this ISO process actually makes sense (perhaps I really should worry about my sanity). It is an excellent example of why we need process.
Computers are brilliant at following processes; it is what they do best. Given the same set of inputs and the same process, a computer or robot will give you the same output. People aren’t computers though; we don’t work in the same way. Given the same input and the same conditions a person may or may not give the same output at the same level of quality – there are so many other factors that can affect us at any moment.
In many industries though – including software development – the product and solution has to be developed by people rather than machines. How do we ensure that the output of a person – or a team of people – is efficient, cost effective and of a consistent nature and quality? Enter the process.
Process is good. That being the case, why do we ‘hate’ following them – why do they seem onerous at times? I think the problem is that our brains are hard-wired to root out efficiencies and find the best route from A to B. When we have a process that defines a different route, one that is longer and involves additional overhead, our minds rebel – they don’t want to do this. It is against our nature. We need processes and we will always need to check and remind people to follow them.
What we really need are processes that allow us to maintain set levels of quality and consistency but yet work with our basic human drive that says ‘we know what we need to do – let’s do it’. How do we get there? I’m sure there must be a process…
