The Naked CIO: Process not bureaucracy

Managers tend to recoil from any discussion about process because they equate it with bureaucracy. They're wrong, says the Naked CIO. Proper process can give organisations an edge.

I remember once talking to some university students about innovation. One student put it to me that when it comes to change, people resent and resist it at all costs.

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My answer was that it's all in how you communicate that change. If it's perceived as negative it's likely to be resisted.

Process is much like change. It's perceived in organisations as a negative, a barrier for plausible denial that IT puts in the way to slow things up.

So much so that in my current organisation as soon as the word process is mentioned my executive colleagues scatter to the exits.

Creating the right process can allow for quicker and more effective delivery of projects and applications. It is just a matter of getting others to believe it.

The common way of instituting process now is to use the C-word - compliance. But invoking compliance as a way of implementing a guiding process is a very slippery slope.

In my experience, which has been good and bad, the key factor is to try and convince the business that a process can be implemented without bureaucracy being a by-product.

In my organisation I have tried to do this in little chunks, again sometimes with success and sometimes with failure.

That is the strange thing about process that I am learning as I work in different organisations: different places have different tolerances for process efficiencies and you must determine the best fit for your operation.

Books and methodology can guide you but how you put a process into practice and monitor its effectiveness is at least as important, if not more so. There are some processes that we must follow legally and which must adhere to a standard of some sort.

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In these situations and in all others, you must make sure you evaluate the business benefit for implementing a process. Does it solve a business problem? Are there other solutions?

In the end efficiency and effectiveness must trump control as a rationale for implementing processes for IT functions.

Also - and critically - never use a process as a reason something cannot be done. It is far too easy to fall into this trap and it does nothing to improve the perception of IT in the eyes of business.

Sometimes the best intentions don't succeed in terms of creating efficiencies and effectiveness in IT delivery.

But if you act on the principle of creating process without bureaucracy then this will have a huge positive impact on your ability to shape effective processes that businesses and departments can buy into.