Finding the Goldilocks Zone: Just the right amount of process

A typical organization operates through a handful of core processes. How these processes work together is its unique system. To break through the ceiling and build a well-oiled machine, you need to possess the ability to systemize.

There are massive coordination costs to company-wide processes, and if you impose too many, chances are your employees and managers will devote their time and headspace to following your processes instead of developing new ideas and getting work done. The benefits of uniformity must also outweigh the benefits of variability, and there aren’t too ma

Here’s the problem. Process, by definition, is backward looking. It was developed in response to yesterday’s troubles. If we treat it like a sacred pact—if we don’t question it—process can impede forward movement. Over time, our organizational arteries get clogged with outdated procedures.

As Charles Betz, author of Architecture and Patterns for IT Service Management, Resource Planning, and Governance: Making Shoes for the Cobbler’s Children, says:4 Because it is the best-understood area of IT activity, the project phase is often optimized at the expense of the other process areas, and therefore at the expense of the entire value cha

If we want to build deep expertise we must take pains to document how we work, to define how we will work in the future and to continuously refine and improve our approach. Working from a defined process leads to the very consistency of quality that a potential client tries to discern late in the buying cycle, when our role is to reassure. Nothing