Hey, what's up, Toby?
We are at episode four of the Process Debt podcast.
And today we're going to dig in a little bit deeper onto what Process Debt is.
You have some thoughts there, so I'm just going to kick it across to you.
Appreciate it.
Always happy to be joining you for these insightful calls or just a little bit of venting.
One of the questions that came up since our earlier episodes was somebody said, but how
do you describe Process Debt?
And I had started by sharing this kind of generic definition of tech debt because a
lot of people get that differently.
And I've seen it described as the cost of future maintenance and rework, right?
As people prioritize speed over quality, as they prioritize something over consistency
or over quality.
And so I know you've thought deeply about this.
I'm just kind of the sidekick, hopefully setting you up for some brilliant insights.
And so get ready.
Yeah.
Fingers crossed.
No.
So tech debt, better understood because people have been banging that drum, but Process Debt
has been this hidden thing.
How do you describe Process Debt?
How would you define Process Debt?
You know, what's interesting is tech debt is unseen.
Right, like you look at any corporation, you look at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, it doesn't
matter.
Somewhere in that organization, there is something falling apart and is duct taped together.
And there's basically two people in the whole organization that understand it.
And without them, it would just be a really, really painful ride.
And I think Process Debt is really similar.
On the business side, the only difference is, and I really define it as like the hidden
burden of inefficient processes that erode growth, employee satisfaction, and organizational
success.
That's really how I define it.
Yeah.
And the reality is it's hidden.
And it's hidden because we don't think about our work oftentimes.
We do what we're asked, but we don't necessarily differentiate between work that is always
done versus work that is one-time work.
And I think if you could, I think where you end up getting into trouble is you put a lot
of process around one-time analysis or one-time work.
And the stuff that you're going to do all the time or in perpetuity, like a QBR or a
monthly business review, those are the ones where you could get the greatest gains from
just slowly defining the process and making it better and better instead of doing complete
and total overhauls.
Because the reality, and what I've seen, and I've seen it at probably every company that
I've ever worked, I think about process.
But what you end up seeing is you end up seeing like people will take a framework and they
will hack that framework in a partial way only to come up with a semi-broken new process
that doesn't work the way that the known process works.
So like you take smart goals and you change the acronym because it's more flashy.
You take Scrum and you think that Scrum is, and we talked about this last time, but you
take Scrum and you think it's just a meeting.
No, no, there's actually a purpose.
There's like real reasons.
You take a balanced scorecard where like businesses want to grow, like that's a given, but we
create all these custom KPIs or custom, all the acronyms.
We just get away from them and that creates this newness that doesn't actually add value.
Yeah, it's a little bit too cute by half, isn't it?
I feel like with so many things in life, it may not be a perfect process, but if I'm the
only operator in it and I know what the steps are, how important is the documentation?
And we'll talk more about transferable and discoverable probably in a future episode,
but when to your point, like if it's one-time analysis, I don't need to document every step.
What I want to get to is the outcome.
And a lot of times you and I've been part of these conversations where we're saying
if you want to become a deck builder, it's important to understand all your tools.
If you want to just throw a barbecue, then cut to the chase, get the deck built and focus
more on picking out your stakes.
And so I love your call out around process.
Too often we do try to engineer what we believe will be needed instead of this kind of discovery
as we go.
And personally, I would say my healthiest processes have been the result of, I should
say the healthiest ones I've touched over the years, whether it was Sarbanes-Oxley or
process re-engineering work.
Fundamentally, it's when somebody already understands very innately why they do things,
but they're so close to it and they're working in the business, producing outputs that they
don't have the time to look at it in total.
And sometimes that's the easiest way to kind of unlock it.
Is that-
Have I shared the Conway's law?
No, Conway's law.
Conway?
Yeah, not Jim Conway.
Although, one of the funniest things for you, the kids out there that are in their
20s and 30s, Jim Conway does a skit of him being a dentist and he puts the Nova cane
in his hand.
I've cried multiple times watching that thing.
It is hilarious.
Anyway, Conway's law, I digress.
Conway's law is that organizational structure follows the business structure.
So the, you know, who your boss is, right?
And so essentially what you find oftentimes in businesses is you find very, very efficient
silos and very crummy handoffs.
So it's very much a tone at the top.
Whoever-
Yeah, because it's built top down, right?
Those silos get really, really, really good.
But a business isn't just one silo.
It's 50, hundreds, thousands of silos.
And it's when that one silo, whatever they're delivering, right?
Let's say they're delivering grain, right?
They might be really good at getting that grain packaged, but that next piece of the
process, whether that's bagging or something, like it's when it goes outside of that organizational
structure, that's when you end up with process debt that no one sees because both silos are
super efficient.
They're super real.
They're really good at what they do.
But in between, it's the handoff.
And that handoff could be via code, right?
The handoff could be the fact that there needs to be operational supervision over that handoff,
right?
Yeah.
But I've seen that a lot.
And that's why, again, process debt oftentimes is hidden.
And that's why by profession, I mean product.
And so what happens oftentimes is the end users will ask for something and you're like,
well, what are you trying to do?
And they're like, well, I'm trying to push this button faster.
You're like, no, no, no, no, no, like not talking about what they're pushing the button
faster.
We're talking about like, what's the outcome of this?
And it's so hard for them to define because their work is tactical.
And so it's like, oh, what I'm trying to do is I want to like, I need to get more information
from the client.
You're like, oh, okay, well, let's go upstream and figure that problem.
Right.
Well, I go back to your definition a minute ago, so, you know, it's invisible, which you've
touched on several times, but the idea that it erodes growth.
So if I'm not seeing the detriment, is it, you know, if a bear farts in the woods, that's
a case of process debt.
The second thing you touched on was employee satisfaction.
And if I'm satisfied enough, then who cares?
And the third is really about organizational success, which feels like that overarching
umbrella.
So if it's not about employee facing, you know, how do you keep them engaged in the
work?
And it's not about growing the business, then ultimately it's going to come back and it's
going to bite us because we're just not going to be as successful.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is, is like, you know, we've, you know, we've talked about this before,
too.
Like you can't make something so perfect.
Like oftentimes, oftentimes businesses have to choose between revenue and perfect process.
And unless you're manufacturing French fries or you're manufacturing Tide or something
that you're basically selling billions of dollars of this thing, it's very hard because
a lot of times business stuff is not repeatable.
And the reason it's not repeatable is, is that over overarching strategy never ties
to something.
And so once, so like if we look at what happened over with Gen.ai and again, we're running
out of time again, Toby.
We need to extend our podcast.
Anyway, this is the most powerful five minutes people are going to have all day.
It takes close to 10 minutes to get there.
But that's so funny.
We have, so it's funny is like, with like Gen.ai just came out of nowhere.
Yeah.
Right.
But like, but, but where did that come from?
Like what, what, what, where did that align in the org?
Because it's, it's whiplash every business that I know of.
A hundred percent.
And like, and the reality is, is like, okay, well is that, was that, you know, and I, was
that a revenue play?
Well, it's tough to make a revenue play when chat GPT is free.
Like that's, that's a, that's a tough, like that's a tough thing, right?
But GPT makes me more efficient.
Therefore it's maybe a pro, maybe it's a better efficiency play ops efficiency.
Really now that being said, I, you know, maybe it's revisions history.
Oh, I will own that piece too.
Like I'm always smarter after the fact.
God knows.
Amen.
You too.
Yeah.
Well, I have a hunch we'll come back to AI again, because it's a solution in search of
a problem.
Yeah.
And we're all trying to pattern match to ask, is this one way for me to become more efficient?
Is it a one way for me to derive more joy out of the work I'm doing?
Yep.
So that's a great call out.
Well, good.
Hey, I appreciate you sharing the definition and really starting to bring myself and our
growing audience.
Did I mention urging on the East coast recently?
Tens of people will probably, tens of people, like we were not even, yeah.
And which is sad considering our LinkedIn connections are, you know, in the greater
than tens.
We could, we could like top 20 by the end of the year.
This is what consistency does for us.
Consistency.
Thanks a bunch.
Yep.
All right.
Take care, man.
See you.
trap!