We all encounter once in a while people in the teams who really love processes.
Now processes are a good thing, because they can help us to work, clarify certain things and improve efficiency.
There are even processes that are absolutely mandatory, for security reasons, for example. It should be carefully chosen where to impose such a mandatory process, but then it should never be broken. Other processes are more like a tool, that we use because it helps us. Or because the majority of us or simply the boss think so. Or because they are just there. And have always been there in the last 9 months or so.
A well known example is the work of airplane pilots. When they take over a plane there is a checklist of things what to do. Each item of the checklist has to be followed. Each time.
I have introduced such a checklist for creating a release or of a software into many projects. It proved wrong to shortcut this or just do it somehow, because in the end the wrong or unknown version of the software was installed or something else went wrong. I introduced it also for creating USB-sticks that were used by non-IT-people to install a software on around 1000 devices physically located in different places throughout the country or by hardware people in their workshop. We were not stupid, what could be done via the internet was done via the internet, but machines could get hardware problems or get messed up or simply be set up for the first time. It took a bit more than an hour to do everything by the book and it never became significantly faster. But then again a failure was potentially much much more expensive than a few hours of work. And after this process had been introduced there were no failures at all with any USB-sticks prepared according to this process.
But of course we should always remember that processes are there to help us do our work better. So they should not become so extensive that they use up all the time or that they make work too hard, unless necessary for reasons like the ones mentioned above. So a good understanding is that a lot of things can be done if all who are involved or simply the boss agree to do so after thorough thinking. Do not stop using your brain because of processes.
