I love proposing new processes!

Whenever a team or group starts to encounter obstacles when trying to address a work-process or communications related issue, I often propose a simple formal process to address some part of the purported issue. For example to document things, or create a spreadsheet to keep track of something, etc. This suggestion is frequently met with pushback and ultimately dismissed. And it’s exactly what I want.

Many issues within a group or organisation stem from a lack of visibility into the status of various elements, whether it’s a project, an individual, or a team. The status could involve the progress of a project or an individual’s availability and capacity for more work. Over time, a plethora of issues will arise due to discrepancies between dependent entities of a group or organisation, and once such issues persists we will usually combat it with some kind of process to keep ourselves reasonably synchronized. These are often formalized and mandated as to ensure adherence and utility. A process that few adhere to is completely useless. I’d argue that many processes that we do follow are also useless, or can be useful in a larger context but not so much for the individuals following them, or vice versa.

If you’ve worked in a larger company, you’ve likely encountered numerous processes that felt like overhead and toil. Naturally, this instills skepticism towards new process proposals, especially if we are the ones tasked with maintaining and supporting the process by providing input and keeping it updated.

So why do I like proposing new processes? Often, the proposed process addresses only a surface level problem and is more work to maintain than it’s worth. However, it’s precisely this aspect that prompts us to seek better and simpler ways to address the problem. The process proposal serves two main purposes:

  • It’s a “stupid idea” that sets the bar low, so that the discussion opens up and egos and self-doubts are toned down. After all, no one else is likely to say anything stupider or more annoying.
  • It’s a concrete action that tries to address some part of the problem. It’s much easier to find reasons for why something isn’t the right approach, and it steers the conversation closer to the actual underlying issues and a potentially better course of action.

Sometimes, we might even adopt the new process or parts of it if we couldn’t argue for a better alternative. In such cases, it’s important that the threshold to try something new, as well as discarding it, is very low. Establishing a work environment where testing new ideas is cheap is hugely beneficial.

So how do I propose them? I usually preface it with “So, as X seems to be an issue, here’s a stupid idea that might address it…”, where X represents a symptom level problem. As simple as that. Of course, there are numerous ways to achieve the same goal of opening up the discussion and addressing the underlying problems. This is just one of several approaches I use.

How do you engage people to address more deeply rooted issues?