S2 E13 | Process vs Practice

I go back to Deming's statement, which was always if you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. But it doesn't mean if you can describe it as a process, you know what you're doing. A lot of times we describe what we have as a process and it doesn't work right. And so it's the notion of like at some point we have to be able to take the time to understand what we're trying to do and realize that a standardized, formal way of approaching the same thing every time is not necessarily the right way, but it's about general principles and understanding the principles behind all of it, as opposed to the process behind it.

Welcome to the Circuit Breaker podcast where we challenge the status quo of innovation and new product development. We'll talk about tools and skills and methodologies used to build better products and make you a better consumer. I'm Bob Mesta and I'm the co founder of the Rewired Group and I'm one of your co hosts and we're joined by Greg Engel, who is my co founder and chief, Bob Interpreter. Join us now as we trip the circuit and give you time to reset, reorganize and recharge your brain to build better products.

Hey Bob.

Hey Greg.

What's up man? So today we're going to talk about something that is actually hard to talk about, but it's a recent trend that I've been seeing, or we've been seeing as we go through talking to customers. And what it is, is I call it the pendulum between process driven product development and practice, or craft or art or whatever word people use for that, you know, free flow design type thing. And there's always this pendulum of how companies react to that. And as things get tighter or fears of economy get worse, I'm seeing more and more companies say, well, if we just put a tighter process in place, we will get the right results, we won't waste money, we won't all these things. So I want to just talk about that a little bit in our belief of you actually have to balance both. Going too far to one side of the pendulum on either side could be dangerous. And so I just want to talk about that a little bit today.

Yep, sure. So it's a big, big topic.

So first I just want to, if you could define for us what, when we say a very heavy process driven design practice, what do we mean? Like what do we say?

Waterfall or stage gate are very, very process Oriented. Right. They have, they have very stringent kind of criteria. They have in some cases detailed out what they're supposed to do in each phase. And think of automotive, you think of anything that's under regulatory reasons, they all have to have a pretty substantial process to follow because there's so many little details you have to follow. And so there's part of that where it's the process, but the interesting part is the process alone and doing those steps in the process don't guarantee success.

Well, and what I think what we see when we're doing this with people like especially right now is when they're getting more, more into that process. I think everything you said is right, is they also try to start putting big data in there or they start putting things that are almost impossible for teams to get or give you sell, give you false hope that you've done more work than you really have done. So we see that when this pendulum starts swinging over to process, we see things get more rigid. Things get like the team has to do more work to get more to.

Less output in some cases.

Well, to get more certainty from the supply side.

Yes.

Which oftentimes is certainty on the wrong. Your famous quote you like to say is complexity on the wrong side or.

Simplicity on the wrong side?

Complexity. Because we think we're making it simple for them. Hey, get this data, get this, get this, get this. But it's actually very complicated and it actually gives us false hope because we know as we get closer to launch we often make trade offs on those things. Yeah.

And a lot of this for me roots back to some of the early work I did in Japan around process. And the interesting part to me is that difference between the way, I'll say the Japanese talked about process was these were the boundaries by which you have control. And so the boundaries of the process was basically say you have responsibility and authority to change things inside that process and that it was more about continuous improvement and changing and realizing there's always a way to make it better. But here's the boundaries where when it got translated over to the US is it got back to best practices. It got back to building a process that is, this is the steps, these are the ways to do it. I don't want you to think, stop thinking and just do the process. It works. And so what happens is that most people equate taking and making a process with not thinking, just follow the steps. And so that's where I think there's this big difference, is that at some point in time there's always got to be some deeper thinking inside the process. But most people forego that and just try to say, if I do this step and this step and this step, it'll guarantee success.

And I think what we're saying with the process thing is you need process, you need steps, you need steps people have to go through, you need metrics, people have to hit all those things. But when we try to make them so tight, when we try to take away the thinking, as you just said, or we try to think that every team thinks alike or will get to the same results at the same times, isn't always right.

That's right. I think the other thing is most of the time, process assumes linearity, like step one, step two, step three, step four. But the reality is sometimes there's iteration and there's phases of work as opposed to steps of work. And so there's the kind of like diverse divergent thinking and divergent prototypes versus convergent prototypes. And so there's different ways in which to kind of frame it. But it's like when you make it so rigid that it's a process only that it's like when this. And it gets back to if I do every step right, then the whole thing's right. And it's usually not that way when you're creating something new.

And I think that's what I want to hit on, is if I swing that pendulum way too far over to process and think process is going to fix all my problems.

Yes.

The things I get are. What we see is things like the process becomes a treadmill. You actually can't stop it because it actually forces you to push things through even though they didn't hit all the process steps because you don't have anything else going.

That's correct. Because it's so cumbersome.

It also creates things like burnout from your employees because they don't get the opportunity to think or they're not. They don't think they're using their skill sets or those types of things will fit too heavily over. I think you also have the problem when you get too far over in the process is you get overconfident in your ability to hit the market. Right. Because you think everybody did everything right. Even though you've compromised the process along the way. Sometimes it doesn't always equate to a success. But then if I take that and I take the same, we look through the same lens and we go over to the practice part or the art part or the customer centric part or Whatever you want to call that, where you give all the freedom and, and.

You just put people, it doesn't work either.

Right. And the reason why it doesn't work there is now people are discovering a lot, but they're not moving down a path to get something out. That's right. Right. So we have to balance them. And when we see pure practice places, and sometimes it works. Right. There are companies out there, especially startups, that they are very creative people and they can make one product or one thing, but when they go to do it again, it's hard because they didn't learn anything about how the process should.

Work, how they made things.

They learn creativity. And when that passion leaves, we often hear people talk about in startup world. Well, it was a passion driven thing. Okay. I'm not 100% sure I believe that. But when you're creative and you have the creative thing. Yes, it does become that and you rely on that.

Yep.

And you don't have the process to actually push through something that you don't have the same passion around. So that's the problem with just being in that practice part that we call it, or craft art, whatever you want to call it.

But what we're saying is you need both sides and you need the boundaries of the process, but you also need then the freedom inside the process and the creativity inside the process to kind of connect dots and discover unknowns and kind of move forward. And so there's that aspect of kind of boundaries, creativity. And then what's the element of push? What's the element of making you make progress, which is time. And by time boxing or time walling, you literally force yourself to kind of make certain progress steps along the way.

So what we talk about, when we talk about this is what we're saying is, look, we know we need both. And there's, you know, if you could make the pendulum straight in the middle, I'm not sure that works either. What you actually need is a process that allows flexibility from both the team and the manager. And you need strong managers to know what, when do I need to drive the team for more creativity or more practice? And when do I need to drive the team to more. To more process? And there needs to be a sweet spot there. It can't be a one size fits all for everything because if you're going into a brand new space, it takes more time. It takes more time, it takes more creativity, it takes more discovery, it takes more thing, more, more time in some spots than you would want. Yep. So you have to Understand those things. And that's why we say, look, we can't make a one size fits all. And that's why we never go in and say, hey, this is the process. What we say is we uncover, where are you? What do you have to do? And then we try to give them metrics to hit in certain stage gates or different things. But know that sometimes I do learnings in stage gate two when I'm still in stage gate one, because the team needs to do that because of where they're at. Maybe it's a new product they're going after, maybe it's a new. A new category and they have to learn more. But by trying to make it so rigid, where they can only learn this in this space or they can only learn that in that space, you actually miss opportunities.

Yes.

So you have to give, you have to have teams that have boundaries of both practice and process. And know as a manager and as a company, where do I need to push the gas? Where's the gas in the brake?

And it gets back to knowns. And if there's a lot of knowns and you know what to do, then the reality is like, then more process might be, but when there's more unknowns, it's a different process. And so this is where I go back to. Every time we talk about a process, there's two things. There's capability and capacity. And if I have some work and it's, let's say at this skill level, and I say, all right, it's going to take two hours to do this work, but I don't have those people available. I have different people available where it's going to take them five hours to do the work, all of a sudden it changes the dynamic. And so what happens? We assume process has similar inputs, similar outputs and similar capacity and cap. And you start to realize at some point you need to realize the process is structure for boundaries. But ultimately we have to be able to do and make some progress in that step. But ultimately, to prescribe every single step is almost a fool's errand.

And I think what I want people to realize is we're not saying you have to have a gazillion processes. No, what we're saying is you have to know when to speed up something, when to slow something down, when to give flexibility, when to give rigidness, and all that comes from letting the teams do what they do. But then understanding the supply and demand at a level that allows you clarity to say, okay, in your example, if there's a Lot of knowns. And I'm just doing a line extension. That doesn't really. Not a lot of thought there. I might put different people on the team and tell them to go faster.

Yes, exactly.

Or if I'm thinking, hey, we think this is a line extension, but it's really a whole new thing for us. I might put more creativity people on it and give them more time.

Yep.

So this is where we're talking about is the process needs to have flexibility built into it. It can't just be a process that, hey, stage one takes three weeks. Stage two takes four weeks. Stage four takes three. Like, that's not. It could work. I'm not saying it doesn't work.

That's. I always say that's the accounting's view of how to run a process. Not. Not a process manager or something.

Because they think they're getting scaled that way.

That's right. They're trying to get scale when the scale is not possible in terms of. It's the thinking again, we go back to the thinking as opposed to the execution. Execution is easy when they're known. It's the unknown part that makes it hard to execute.

And then when you do this balance of practice and process, it takes a different type of manager. Because a lot of times we run into managers that are afraid to tell teams or give teams clarity. Yes, they'll tell teams what to do, but they won't give clarity of why, or they won't give clarity of how, or they won't give clarity of what the end result should be. And we think managers should be spending more time on giving clarity and less time on saying, this is how you do it.

Right. The people should know how to do it. It's more like, here's where we need to get to, here's why we need to get there. Here's the resources that you have. Figure it out and give them the leeway to actually use their knowledge and their abilities to figure that out, as opposed to prescribing the way they should figure that out.

So as a executive or a manager of teams, you need to be thinking about is you're making these decisions on changing your process, or you're making decisions on changing how you manage people. You need to stop and think about why are you doing it. Like, I get reacting to economic conditions, we all have to do it.

Yep.

Right. But is really the answer putting more process in place and hoping you're gonna get a better result when however many years your company's been in business, that actually doesn't work.

It hasn't worked.

And I look at things like. And I don't want to call out particular names, but when I look at companies that do research for final projection of how a company will do or.

How a product will do. Yeah.

Launch data, we've used that for, I don't know, 50, 60 years or whatever. Long time. And every time we talk to a team about it, they're like, yeah, we have to put it through this or we have to put it through that. And we're like, okay, what are the criteria you're using? Well, we're going to use this criteria. Is that the criteria that you're going to actually go with? Are you going to spend $2 million in advertising? No, we never spend $2 million in advertising. Well, then why are you putting that in?

Why are you making that? The assumption? It's like, well, we need to get it to be this level and we want to know where it is. And if we put 2 million in, then it's like we is. And then we're going to then adjust it based on kind of like where we need it to be. And it never matches. It never matches.

And that. And that's what I'm kind of getting to is we do these things with process and we do these things with this type of stuff, knowing that it hasn't worked in the past. So can we try a different way? Can we not just react to the one factor? Can we actually look at the whole and say, okay, well, maybe if it is. Economic times are changing. We do have to get a little bit better on process. Maybe we nudge it up, but we don't go to the extreme.

Yep.

To making it where we can eliminate. We think we can eliminate all our people and we'll still. We'll still come up with a great, great product because probably not going to happen.

Right.

You need people to actually do the work. So the process doesn't do the work.

That's right.

People do the work. That's right. But I can't get. I can't hire 150 million people and say, hey, there's no process. Just come up with something great in the next three years. Because then I'm spending a lot of money. I probably won't get a result either. They're going to. They're going to do what they want to do and they're not going to get. They're not going to understand what the business needs and what the customer needs. So I have to blend the two.

Yep. Yep. I go back to Deming's statement, which was always, you know, if you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. But it doesn't mean if you can describe it as a process, you know what you're doing. A lot of times we describe what we have as a process and it doesn't work. Right. So it's the notion of like at some point we have to be able to take the time to understand what we're trying to do and realize that a standardized, formal way of approaching the same thing every time is not necessarily the right way, but it's about general principles and understanding the principles behind all of it as opposed to the process behind it.

So I think, I think this episode we're really just trying to get people to think again about why do we.

Do the balance between process and.

But really more practice, more. Even a higher level is anytime we put something in why are we doing it, what are we acting, what are we reacting to and what are we hoping we're going to get out of it? And they need to unpack that because I think sometimes we make decisions like I said on. On one factor.

Yep.

And we know one factor at a time. Anything is usually not good because.

Not reproducible.

For sure. That one factor. I eliminate people.

Yeah.

Because I made the process so tight, we don't think we need as many people. Well, another.

Something else is going to pop up. Yep. Exactly.

Right.

Exactly.

I can't go after a new market because now I don't have the people to go after it.

Exactly.

That's a problem. And it's probably going to cost you more money to go hire more people. Yep. Than it would if I just kept the people and understand that maybe I keep people or I lay off some and I keep the process, but I start doing more process driven innovation stuff, which is the iterations, which is the line extensions, which is the stuff that is faster to get through theoretically. Not sure it is. But faster get through theoretically. And then have a smaller teamwork on the breakthroughs where when the economy changes I might be able to move people through faster. But I have to understand the people I have and make sure I'm not sacrificing one for the other. I still need people to be able to do both.

Yep.

I need people that can follow process and I need people that can think and I just need to be able to put them in the right places.

To win and give them.

With the right direction.

That's right. And give them the right context in order to kind of execute.

Okay, so on this one, I think the homework's blurry. So if you have an idea, go for it. If you don't, I'll make something up.

So what I would say is this, is that what we're really trying to do is you need both process and practice. And so I might look at something where you have a process that's not working very well. What's the practice you need to actually hone and refine in order to make the process run better. And if you might have something that's a practice that actually doesn't have enough process around it, can you actually build some process around it to help you actually make the practice better? But to realize that they go hand in hand and to realize that part of this is to make sure that we have enough latitude that it's not all process and that it's not all just practice, but it's a combination of.

The two and they all have time to do it. Yep. Yep. As always, thanks for listening and hope to catch you on the next launch.

See ya.

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