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Forbes, BRW, Financial Review etc. During the late nineties, during the dot
com boom, once it became apparant that there were a million vapourware
merchants on the market sucking down investment dollars, professional
investment services made the point that the first thing any prospective
investor needed to see was their management and development processes. Many
of the 'software houses' were just plain skunk works. The investment
advisors were basically saying that no process = no success.
This advice is STILL being given today - don't take their word for it - get
in there and check it out for yourself.
Now, I fully concede, with no qualms whatsoever, your excellent point, that
a process can be hopelessly flawed. This does NOT, however, prove the
statement that processes detract from Q. The logical refutation is - compare
the presence of a good process to its absence. So, you name a whole single
process and base your entire argument upon it.
It also depends on the nature of the business, as you state. Your business
is a service industry, very customer focussed and requiring flexibility
because of that. Not all businesses are service oriented, and the closer one
gets to 'production line' shops, the MUCH MUCH more important process comes.
Do you seriously believe for one moment that Ford/Nissan/Mitsubishi etc
could operate without processes? So, just counting the major manufacturers
thats DOZENS of good, solid processes adding value to the business via Q.
So, you now need a few dozen proofs to counter that :-)
Steve> Do it once, do it proper.
Andrew> Duh.
How do you know if you are doing it properly if you arent following a
process? You GUESS, and sometimes end up repeating work.
> Perfection isn't irrelevant - its impossible.
Obviously you have never seen a circle...
Steve> I cannot see promoting complacency or sloppiness as doing any good...
Andrew> Process does not equal quality. There are plenty of well-planned
processes that produce total garbage. Again, the components of success are
just not that simple.
#1: Your comment bears no reference to my comments.
#2: (repeated) Success is generally obtained from obtaining consistent
results. My 'success' as a word heretic is purely based on my consistent
providing of workable solutions. If most of my solutions failed, I would
have no success. Yet, this in itself partially proves your point - I use no
set process to get them the answers. Loosely, it could be defined as (stop
when solution ready) Rack Brain, Search Resources, Test weird theories.
So, as I come from multi-national production environments with many
thousands of people attempting to work synergistically, I have seen for
myself the value of Q. As you come from a small service-based company, you
see process as an unneccesary managemnt burden.
Yet again, the main point that led to my reply is:
I cannot see promoting complacency or sloppiness as doing any good...
Aim high and miss, you will still get better results than aiming low and
hitting.
Steve Hudson, Word Heretic
HDK List MVP
Word help and tools: heretic -at- tdfa -dot- com
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