This is a post in defence of process. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: ‘urgh, process is a thing put in place to make up for mediocre teams’; or ‘prioritise discussion over documentation’; or ‘I get enough red tape in other parts of my life’. You know the response. You’ve probably said it as many times as I have.

Conversations are cheap

I am the first person in the room to defend the delights of working in a lightweight, agile (lowercase ‘a’) way. You make stuff faster, generally better, and you build team or product momentum. The real benefits I see are people benefits: a closer-knit team; shared understanding; less things on fire. The wholesale shift to this way of working – outside of slow-rotting corporations, that is – has many benefits. But the cultural distain of the ‘P word’ is not one them. Process has a place.

The main issue I see time and time again is that conversations are low effort. Not only that, but certain ways of working prioritise them over slower, reflective, considered decision-making. I use one method that works to counter-act this.

‘Write it down’

Whenever someone asks me to do something that I think seems ill-conceived in some way, I ask them to write it down. That’s it.
Because writing is high effort. Making sentences is the easy bit, it’s the thinking I want them to do. By considering their request it slows them down. Maybe 30% of the time or something, they come back and say ‘oh, that thing I asked you to do, I’ve had a think and it’s fine, we don’t need to do it’.

This little method isn’t about doing less. Well, actually it is. It’s about doing less important things instead of important things. It’s not about being obstructive. I certainly don’t ask someone ‘why?’ five times (which is a shortcut to being called a smart-arse in my experience). This is about a light-touch way of asking someone to slow down.

Time for reflection

In the UK, medical doctors are required to ‘reflect on an aspect of their work’ every month. This is time that is monitored as part of their self-development and self-improvement. Doctors are amongst the busiest, pressured people I know and if this wasn’t mandated by the British Medical Council, then I’m pretty sure it just wouldn’t happen. They have to make time. And we should, too.

We’re all running at 100mph. Making things faster and faster. In my own experience, time reflecting on work tends towards sitting in front of screen – like I am now – thinking about the next thing on my todo list, or beating myself up about the latest ball I’ve dropped. How does that Elbow song go? ‘Cramming commitments like cats in a sack’

These days, I welcome being asked to ‘write it down’. It gives me permission to take a breath. To pause and reflect on what I’m asking. I’m convinced my heart rate drops a little. You see, in some environments this would be called ‘process’, or ‘red tape’. ‘Being asked to write something down is a blocker to my flow’. Those kinds of responses miss the mark. When being asked to ‘write something down’ it’s really shorthand for ‘take some time and think about what you’re asking’.

Next time someone asks you to do something, try it. I bet 3 times out of 10, they say ‘oh it doesn’t matter’. You’ll have that time back. They’ll be a little wiser and have a lower heart rate.