Importance of processes

Day 180 / 366

I have worked with all sorts of companies, from big corporates like JP Morgan to small 3–4 person startups running off a cafe. Everyone has a different way of doing things. Even large teams sometimes have no processes in place for task management. People would just discuss things to be done in a meeting or a call, someone would make notes of it and mail it to everyone.

On the other hand, even small startups would sometimes follow elaborate processes and rules for task management. They would document each and every task to be done, hold regular calls to keep everyone up to date, and calculate things like sprint velocity, burnout, and whatnot.

Most people would take the former approach. It’s hard to appreciate the effect of the second approach until you have tried both. The processes are hard to understand, and harder even to implement consistently, which is why many don’t even give it a chance. But I can tell from experience that they work. And in the long run, they save you a hell of lot of a time.

Suppose only one person in your team knows how to do a specific task. Whenever someone wants to learn it, this person goes to their desk and teaches them how to do it. Wouldn’t it save a lot more time if the person just documented all the steps to do it online so that anyone can access it and understand it? This way even if the person is no longer there, the team would not be blocked as anyone can refer to the document to perform the task.

Being organized might slow you down a bit, but will pay dividends later.