

The Tyranny of Process Worship Within IT - Hume62
http://www.ciopedia.com/u/27

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dasil003
I think a distinction needs to be made between actual process and codified
process. The former always exists, and the only question is whether it is
working or not. The latter is endemic to large organizations with disaffected
and mediocre management and employees, which is what Netflix is actively
fighting against.

However the tone of this piece and the original Netflix manifesto does not
acknowledge this distinction. I think this shows a bias that is driven by
product-oriented software engineers and creatives. "If the product is great
then who cares how we got there?" Well that's certainly a valid viewpoint,
however it shortchanges great management. Great management is not done by
simply hiring the best people and turning them loose on a project. That works
in a startup where everyone knows each other and so any two people can notify
each other of relevant issues. It doesn't work in larger organizations where
individuals have a much narrower slice of responsibility and thus lower
visibility on the whole actual process going on.

I've worked with some people who take a process-oriented approach and were
very talented at getting the best work out of their employees. For these
people it's no more about rigid codified processes than it is about a
relentless focus on product. Instead, the goal is to understand at a high
level what all the various stakeholders are doing, where their individual
bottlenecks are, and determining a process that maximizes everyone's
productivity. People like this are incredibly valuable, because let's face it,
management is much harder than programming to do well because you are not a
domain expert in anything, instead you have to figure out how to help all the
different domain experts operate efficiently.

I realize none of this is news to the folks at Netflix, but I think the way
the manifesto is written de-emphasizes these facts to the point that the
inexperienced or low-level programmer may miss the forest for the trees, which
incidentally is exactly what the problem with bad actual process is.

~~~
Hume62
Thanks for the comments. I should have made a better distinction between
actual and codified process. My thoughts were toward codified, which, as you
state, are endemic in larger organizations, and seem to build on themselves
over the years, good and bad, until less and less actual progress toward the
ultimate goals of the organization is accomplished. Process is delivered,
rather than products...

Although I did not agree with everything in the Netflix deck, I was impressed
by the "bias" toward great people rather than great process, which seems to
me, to be a fresh take on it. There will always be necessary processes and
there are certainly many great process best practices to draw from, but I do
think we should all be CONSTANTLY QUESTIONING what is in place, asking
ourselves if it is serving us or we serving it, and making changes as needed.
It is my experience that this happens rarely in large organizations. There
simply isn't the political will to take it on...

~~~
dasil003
In the corporate world it's _definitely_ a fresh take, and that alone is worth
a lot.

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donw
The problem here is that everybody thinks that they're talented superstars,
and they don't need to have to worry about rolling back a version, or testing,
or any of those other dreaded bits of 'process'. Which is another way of
saying, "putting some steps in place to cope when you inevitably screw up."

This piece sounds like it's written by some cowboy who wants to move fast, and
be all agile and light. These people are also nominally nowhere to be found at
4am when their undocumented change brings down the production server farm, and
then I have to get up and fix it... which is all kinds of fun.

The fundamental problem is that most shops are organized with 'IT',
'Operations', and 'Development' all being very separate camps. There's no
mutual respect, and plenty of blame, so massive piles of process get created
as a means of defense for the Ops and IT guys, who get screamed at every time
there's a problem that hits the customers.

There's a really good talk on why this is bad from the Velocity conference,
here: <http://velocityconference.blip.tv/file/2284377>

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Hume62
Thanks for the comment. no, I'm actually not even talking about the process of
building software, (as I stated in the post), and am anything but a "cowboy".
I'm talking about all the dozens of other processes that add zero value to the
product, that are put in place with the best of intentions, and add all kinds
of cost....things like spending 30 minutes a day tracking time for every
meeting attended against an activity/project, multiple processes taking weeks
for acquiring a server, weeks spent in generating documents that are not even
looked at by others, etc... hopefully that makes sense.

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hyperbovine
There is only one process in IT which I worship:

    
    
      USER      PID     COMMAND
      root      1       /sbin/init

~~~
Hume62
excellent t-shirt idea

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jsonscripter
I think we need to create an approval process for processes so that we can
slow down the creation of processes.

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keefe
Was that comment approved????

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thras
"We should focus on what people get done, not how many hours or days are
worked. Just as we don’t have a 9-5 day policy, we don’t need a vacation
policy."

While I admire the sentiment, it's rather anti-family.

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peripitea
Can you elaborate?

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thras
That sort of policy encourages people to work very long hours to out-compete
their coworkers. And don't tell me that there is no competition working for a
place where adequate work is rewarded with a "generous severance package."

You pay for that sort of thing long term with burnt out employees and broken
families.

Vacation and the 9 to 5 policy encourages people to compete with each other
without going overboard and ruining their lives. Whether that's good or bad
for you, their employer, is something that you need to consider.

~~~
peripitea
We have a similar policy where I work. There are certainly people who work
harder, or who take less vacation than they would like. But from what I've
seen, most of these people are either workaholics, or underperformers who
probably shouldn't be working here anyway. I suspect most of these people
would be working long hours regardless of the work hours or vacation policy.

For the rest of us, the freedom is tremendously valuable, and we have
fantastic work-life balance.

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oliveoil
I voted this up immediately after reading the title.

