
The Null Process (2015) - gadders
https://www.kateheddleston.com/blog/the-null-process
======
the_af
Interesting article. The Null Process seems at least somewhat analogous to the
phenomenon described in the essay "The Tyranny of Structureless" [1] (that
when people claim there is no hierarchy/structure in a group of people, in
truth there is an informal but very powerful hierarchy that's hidden from you
and whose rules you are not familiar with). If there are "no processes" in
truth there is a process and you don't know its rules because they aren't
stated anywhere. Aka the "unspoken expectations" mentioned in TFA.

\----

[1]
[https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm](https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm)

~~~
hinkley
This is all reminding me of the murmurs from Jeri Ellsworth and friends about
the shadow government at Valve.

The lack of transparency means that the subtle people win a rigged game that
the more oblivious don't even know is being played. A category in which
engineers are substantially over-represented.

We put it out there so that there are more eyes on it, and people are forced
to acknowledge their own pain points and learn a bit about themselves and/or
teamwork.

------
Benjammer
I've enjoyed using and explaining this concept ever since I read the article
initially, a few years ago. I think it's a powerful idea when applied in the
right context. I do want to play devil's advocate though, and point out some
"benefits," imo, to "the null process" that are left out from the article:

\- The null process does not have a formal process owner, so nobody is
directly on the hook for blame when things go wrong with "the process."

\- The null process does not shake up or disrupt existing, implicit or
explicit, political power structures in place. It's harder to make an enemy by
"doing things how we've always done them" rather than fighting to change
something.

\- The null process allows those in leadership to drastically change strategy
at both small and large scales/scopes, without having to actually do formal
change management. The new process is whatever randomly settles around the new
goals/strategies. As opposed to having to actually tear down or carefully
alter existing, formalized processes.

\- The null process is usually poorly understood by any one individual, it's
made up of haphazard, ad-hoc communication channels and specific rituals
between individuals or teams. This disperses power and disallows any one
person or small group from gaining undue influence over the whole by
controlling some key cog or relationship in a formalized process.

\- The null process can somewhat shield creatives and strategists from being
overwhelmed by stick-in-the-mud, by-the-book people who may use formalized
process as a cudgel to beat people over the head with in order to show
dominance or gain power.

~~~
nine_k
Can't agree on a few points.

> _so nobody is directly on the hook for blame when things go wrong_

Usually the poor guy who broke the unspoken rules is to blame, and worse yet,
it looks like he's to blame out of the blue. Things went wrong, his colleagues
are unhappy, and the reasons for that are vague.

> _The null process does not shake up or disrupt existing, implicit or
> explicit, political power structures in place._

In part, it _is_ those structures, the unspoken implicit expectations. Messing
with them is much like messing with explicit power structures, only
blindfolded.

> _This disperses power and disallows any one person or small group from
> gaining undue influence over the whole by controlling some key cog_

Rather, the people informally "in the know" do gain the undue influence, but
do so informally. You just have to talk to them via these haphazard channels
(and know to talk to them in the first place), or certain things fail to work
well. This also lowers the bus factor of the organization, without formally
acknowledging it.

OTOH I tend to agree with the other two points: that informal "null" processes
are easier to dismantle and replace with a more formal process of a very
different kind, and that the lack of formal process allows some needed
creativity, informal "skunk works" to sneak in where (other) formal processes
do not allow for that.

~~~
Benjammer
>> so nobody is directly on the hook for blame when things go wrong

>Usually the poor guy who broke the unspoken rules is to blame

Sure. I could have phrased my point better as, "Even if someone is blamed,
nobody in leadership will be blamed for 'bad process' decisions."

>the people informally "in the know" do gain the undue influence

I could argue that this is a feature and not a bug. The inefficiency of the
null process means that the "informally in the know" group will need to be
much larger, on average, than the feasible power groups in efficient
organizations. A group composed of 25% of the employees would probably be less
likely to end up making radical decisions than a group of <4% of the
employees.

>This also lowers the bus factor of the organization

By the same measure, having a larger power group and the null process would
seem to me to greatly increase the bus factor. There would be more people each
specifically focused on smaller areas, and/or possibly also overlapping in
knowledge due to inefficiencies/redundancies in the null process.

------
tyingq
I do agree with many of these points, but it doesn't talk about the other end
of the scale. Too many processes.

I've been places where excess process is a crutch for poor general technical
expertise and troubleshooting skills.

~~~
gadders
I think when people see that, it scares them so much they have no process at
all and hit a new set of problems...

~~~
Afton
"fighting the last war"

~~~
hinkley
I will say it's a pretty awkward conversation to explain why we are again
having a problem that we've already suffered through twice before.

Especially if the customer knows they are paying for our inability to figure
out what the hell we are doing.

------
lekkerlekker
Some people loves a structured world with clearly stated rules. This has many
benefits especially when the situation is very well defined, repeatable and
requires many people to cooperate. The down side is that rules will almost
never accommodate all possible situations.

So when a problem is very dynamic and requires few people to cooperate it
might be beneficial not to try and force strict rules on uncertain conditions.

And yes some people are not as good in picking up social cues and working with
loosely defined rules, and maybe they are not the perfect match for these
positions. Its not the end of the world.

Not saying that building processes is bad, just that for _some_ situations it
might better not to.

P.S. the lawsuit was rejected: [http://svelf.com/class-certification-defeated-
in-twitter-gen...](http://svelf.com/class-certification-defeated-in-twitter-
gender-discrimination-case/) so maybe not the perfect example in hindsight :)

------
pjc50
Null process is not only like "null pointer" but like "null hypothesis",
except in science you have to make explicit what that is.

Whenever someone talks of "common sense", they're invoking the null process.
It also reminds me of the "ask vs guess" culture issue.

~~~
jhardy54
ask vs guess: [https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-
bet...](https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-between-FU-
and-Welcome#830421)

------
mherdeg
Making a checklist is hard work!

My first and second drafts of process documents are always way too long. It's
easy to be verbose. It's hard to be concise.

It's very hard to be concise _and_ to accurately convey the whole process.

One strategy that helps is imagining a tiny flashcard checklist you'd carry
around while executing the process.

Another strategy I've seen help in some contexts is tutorial videos -- if you
watch someone follow a checklist, you might get to see an obvious implicit
part of a step which a novice doesn't know. Watching someone's screen as they
actually use a system according to the published steps can be really valuable.

------
jffhn
Reminds me of "Programmer Anarchy" by Fred George:
[https://vimeo.com/43690647](https://vimeo.com/43690647)

Except that his talk is, on the contrary, about how preferrable it can be in
some contexts not to have a hierarchy enforcing processes.

~~~
nine_k
Processes can be instituted democratically, when everybody interested agrees
that a process would be beneficial / helpful for their work. I've seen this
happen, and I think it's the proper way in most cases.

