Process Cancer
Editors Note: The manifesto urges us to put people over processes, but in almost every organization we still see the opposite. Often, adoption of agility translates into superficial adoption of Scrum processes, artifacts, rituals and jargon. The result is we put process before people, exactly as we shouldn’t.
Here, Tom Kejzlar explains why this happens, how processes creep and grow like cancer, and what we can do about it.
A foolish process will beat an interactive person at any time.
Processes have a nasty tendency to spread like cancer, eventually killing the host — your team or organization. Instead of running — obsolete and rarely useful — process-mapping and streamlining programs like Six Sigma, stop creating nonsensical processes in the first place.
Moreover, if you see a process not working resist the urge to add another process on top of it, but rather discuss with people who do the work how they do it and only then change the dysfunctional process. (Or — better still — eliminate that process.)
What are the sources of infection?
To be compliant
If you are in a regulated environment, some degree of formal processes is inevitable. It allows you to stay in business. What you need to keep in mind when it comes to compliance-related processes is this: regulators are interested in outcomes and not processes themselves.
To help newcomers quickly find out what to do
What was your go-to resource when you last started in a new company or just at a new position? Processes? I doubt that. Reason: they usually don’t describe reality. Having processes to help newcomers is admirable. It however only works under two conditions. First: processes are simple and understandable. (If the newcomer cannot find or understand the process, he will spend more time trying to get somewhere than if he just asked colleagues.) Second: processes must describe how things actually work. (If they don’t, they are just useless and anyone trying to follow them will in effect be sabotaging the organization.)
To control others
Especially in organizations with a hierarchical, command&control culture, processes are used to ensure people follow the rules and to as they are told. (This leads to people blindly following processes as their way of showing resistance.) Often, the abundance of processes and procedures exists in a naïve and foolish belief these will compensate for the lack of vision and common purpose.
What is the usual way processes are created?
It starts with practices
Many of them you may have seen working for one particular team. (Or multiple teams, or you have seen them working in another company, or they are so-called “best practices” — in theory applicable everywhere, but practically often useless and dangerous.) And you had a brilliant idea: standardize them and make them reusable, in a foolish quest for higher productivity.
Or “fixing” a dysfunctional process
You have discovered a process not being followed or not producing what it is intended to. Your go-to solution? Create another process around it to monitor (or enforce) the first process. Usually done without a glimpse of common sense. If we used just a tiny bit of it, we’d assume there is a reason why that process is failing — usually the people who ought to follow it have found it stupid. (Remember that most people really hate doing stupid things unless they are saboteurs.)
Or a desire to reuse and align
Would you think that your son’s clothes will look good on you? That they will be useful for you? You would not. (Ok. I admit. In some cases you might. But imagine your son is 5 years old.) So why would you expect that a process that works in one situation will work in a different one? The desire to reuse things that are not meant to be reusable, to have everybody use the same processes, templates, tools creates processes that constrain everyone and block any innovation. (How can you think outside the box if your current box is an armored safe deposit box and you are sitting there tied to the chair with only one hand able to move?)
By hard workers with great intentions
Have you ever noticed what happens if you give process related work to a hard worker? With their desire to work hard, they try to capture every possibility, to include every possible alternative in the process regardless of how improbable or insignificant these might be.
These people have the best intentions — to create a process that truly describes reality. Unfortunately in a complex system, this is impossible to do. And how it ends is usually with monstrous processes no-one understands or wants to follow.
Treatment options
Put people first
First and foremost: you need to let the people doing the work decide how they want to do it. You can provide advice. You can give feedback. You can ask questions. But let them try out their chosen way. If it does not work, they will find out and change. We all learn best through our own failures, if we have the space to admit them and reflect upon them.
Eliminate
When you see a process, ask yourself: is this really necessary? What simpler ways could there be to achieve the same result? Utilizing the previous principle, engage others in this discussion as well. Be clear and state the objective: eliminate or drastically reduce the process. Not add to it.
Do not over-standardize
You need some standards. But don’t overdo it. Your organization — like any other complex system — needs diversity. Diversity also brings resilience to single critical failures. Therefore you want to invest in increasing it, not decreasing it and processes do the latter.
Delegate
Instead of creating processes to aid decision making, delegate the whole thing. Make sure the team understands the context and leave the decision-making power on them instead of creating a formal decision making process.
Automate
If a process consists of repeatable actions that people need to perform and you cannot get rid of it (maybe it is a compliance issue), automate as much as you can. Repeatable actions are not worthy of your teams spending huge amounts of time on them. Note that automating does not mean making it easier for people to do a repeatable process by the use of templates, forms and guidelines — these in fact tighten the process! Automating means doing the process with minimal human interaction.
Give process-related work to the lazy ones
Lazy people usually work smart, not hard. They will do the bare minimum that is necessary for a process to work. Or they will right away question your intent, giving you a clear sign that creating a process might not be a good idea after all.
Call for action! Process cancer is tightly related to sabotage and bullsh*t. Do something about it! Join the #NoBullshit network and promote values to stop BS!
