What's Wrong With Process? Part 2
The next installment in our occasional series...
"I don't need process, I have really good people..."
This is the first argument management will make in defense of their lack of process. It occurs mostly in entrenched industries like insurance, banking, and healthcare. The established personnel in the organization are very knowledgable in their particular jobs and the interplay between departments that always occurs in a large organization. They have often developed their own processes and proceudres over years of experience and varied situations. Therefore, any suggestion of chages to their process from an outside voice meets with disdain and skepticism. After all, since our current process works, why change?
I have several issues with this attitude, mainly having to do with perspective. While it is true that the processes developed internally can be made to work within the organization, the perspective of these processes is specific to the department or organization at hand - they may not translate well to a larger world, such as coordinated enterprise reporting, for example. In this situation, it's a good bet that the other organizations that are to be interfaced have developed their own procedures, which may be similar but likely not identical. When this happens, negotiations on a common path must be done, which are usually difficult becuase neither organization will want to compromise what "works" for them.
The above is only one example of the harm that can beset enterprise-wide projects because of this attitude. Another risk comes with the necessity to codify and release vital information related to the department operations in support of the collaboration project. This goes counter to the training of everyone passing through the Western school system - you are taught that your retention of information gives you better grades, and therefore an advantage over your classmates. There is very little teaching in a team setting with information sharing. Therefore, people entering the workforce value retention of information over sharing, which places strain on projects that require sharing to be successful.
One of the things I've seen over and over in implementing enterprise software is the overloading of resources on the client project team. This is another outgrowth of the "really good people" attitude. Many times, employees are expected to continue their originally assigned duties in addition to being fully loaded (from a project management perspective) on the implemetation project. This invariably leads to incomplete work on both sides of their responsibilities, and lessening morale on the team because of the stress. The balancing of schedule and resource loading is a subject for another rant, but I suspect that overloading would happen less frequently without the companion attitude of having "really good people."
Another consequence of denegrating process because of people comes with the accompanying lack of documentation of existing department processes. This has the effect of curtailing staff career growth since they are required to remain doing what they're doing to support department operations, with the attendant morale decay. The simple act of documentation could mitigate this effect, but many organizations who have the "really good people" attitude do not see the need, and end up losing their "good people" for other jobs, often outside the organization.
How do you avoid this attitude? Does management take the opposite attitude and not trust their employees outside of the process? Of course not. The act of having well-documented, consistent processes allows an organization (of any size) to be much more flexible in meeting business challenges. They can train new employees (either temporary or full-time) much more quickly and consistently since the time of the established employees will not be taken up in basic training. They can have relatively effortless cross-training and coverage of shortfalls. They will not fear career advancement by their staffs, since replacement will be easier. They can take on special projects (like enterprise software deployments) easier. The stress level of the staff will be decreased, and the operation will be more efficient and effective overall.
Don't get me wrong - I love working with "really good people" - I can learn a lot from them. Unfortunately, that attitude is the rare one in today's organizations, and is not generally encouraged. Imagine the increase in corporate efficiency that can be achieved by turning those attitudes...
Next time - "I don't need process - I have advanced technology..."
"I don't need process, I have really good people..."
This is the first argument management will make in defense of their lack of process. It occurs mostly in entrenched industries like insurance, banking, and healthcare. The established personnel in the organization are very knowledgable in their particular jobs and the interplay between departments that always occurs in a large organization. They have often developed their own processes and proceudres over years of experience and varied situations. Therefore, any suggestion of chages to their process from an outside voice meets with disdain and skepticism. After all, since our current process works, why change?
I have several issues with this attitude, mainly having to do with perspective. While it is true that the processes developed internally can be made to work within the organization, the perspective of these processes is specific to the department or organization at hand - they may not translate well to a larger world, such as coordinated enterprise reporting, for example. In this situation, it's a good bet that the other organizations that are to be interfaced have developed their own procedures, which may be similar but likely not identical. When this happens, negotiations on a common path must be done, which are usually difficult becuase neither organization will want to compromise what "works" for them.
The above is only one example of the harm that can beset enterprise-wide projects because of this attitude. Another risk comes with the necessity to codify and release vital information related to the department operations in support of the collaboration project. This goes counter to the training of everyone passing through the Western school system - you are taught that your retention of information gives you better grades, and therefore an advantage over your classmates. There is very little teaching in a team setting with information sharing. Therefore, people entering the workforce value retention of information over sharing, which places strain on projects that require sharing to be successful.
One of the things I've seen over and over in implementing enterprise software is the overloading of resources on the client project team. This is another outgrowth of the "really good people" attitude. Many times, employees are expected to continue their originally assigned duties in addition to being fully loaded (from a project management perspective) on the implemetation project. This invariably leads to incomplete work on both sides of their responsibilities, and lessening morale on the team because of the stress. The balancing of schedule and resource loading is a subject for another rant, but I suspect that overloading would happen less frequently without the companion attitude of having "really good people."
Another consequence of denegrating process because of people comes with the accompanying lack of documentation of existing department processes. This has the effect of curtailing staff career growth since they are required to remain doing what they're doing to support department operations, with the attendant morale decay. The simple act of documentation could mitigate this effect, but many organizations who have the "really good people" attitude do not see the need, and end up losing their "good people" for other jobs, often outside the organization.
How do you avoid this attitude? Does management take the opposite attitude and not trust their employees outside of the process? Of course not. The act of having well-documented, consistent processes allows an organization (of any size) to be much more flexible in meeting business challenges. They can train new employees (either temporary or full-time) much more quickly and consistently since the time of the established employees will not be taken up in basic training. They can have relatively effortless cross-training and coverage of shortfalls. They will not fear career advancement by their staffs, since replacement will be easier. They can take on special projects (like enterprise software deployments) easier. The stress level of the staff will be decreased, and the operation will be more efficient and effective overall.
Don't get me wrong - I love working with "really good people" - I can learn a lot from them. Unfortunately, that attitude is the rare one in today's organizations, and is not generally encouraged. Imagine the increase in corporate efficiency that can be achieved by turning those attitudes...
Next time - "I don't need process - I have advanced technology..."
posted by Steve Putman at 06:06
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