Who is the process for?

One process to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

I've been puzzling a lot about process recently. Why are we more interested in Process over People. We talk about processes, we tinker with and tune and polish processes, we treasure our precious processes, gollum, yes we do, my precious.

I've been asking the question of anyone who'll give me a minute, "why do we give more energy to process over people?"

My own answer is the most cynical: I find it hard to speak well of our clients and I'm indifferent toward our products - I give energy to my process to keep me working in a professional way even when I'm not motivated by my clients or product. Another answer is that processes are easier to change than people and programmers are almost by definition control freaks.

Processes are safety nets to ensure that good practices are given appropriate time and effort, knowing that we can't be trusted to always do the right thing.

So it makes sense that I should have a process that compensates for my weakness, but my weaknesses are not your weakness, so why do we imagine one process will suffice? Is that one process the set of all the things that we need to compensate for everyone's weaknesses, (assuming those things are not contradictory)? Or is the process just compensating for our common weaknesses, (perhaps giving us an excuse to not attend to our personal weakness, after all I'm following the process)?

Structured process should be a tool that you shape from a knowledge of your weakness and that serves to compensate for those weaknesses.

I value a team process. But I recognise that not everything in the process is there for my benefit, and some things I really need are not there. As a professional I aim to augment the team process with my own personal practices so that my work is better. As a professional I recognise that playing along with things that are not necessary for me can help others and improve the whole team's quality of work.

But how to strike the balance? How to keep the balance in the face of change?