Get Your Process Right

PEOPLE, PROCESS, PRODUCT, TECH

How is your business process these days?

I met with a prospect last week that has a form of technical debt.

Technical debt is a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.

Wikipedia

This business made a tech decision years ago.

And that one tech decision — wounded their business process.

They’ve operated in a slightly broken mode ever since.

As I sat there listening to their challenges I couldn’t help but think.

Why?

How did they get here?

As the conversation continued the reason became clear.

There was a technical bias.

And that technical bias influenced their decision making.

But that wasn’t the whole problem.

The real problem stemmed from a lack of understanding of their processes.

Understanding your process.

How your business operates.

Is key to any decision that your business makes.

Without understanding your process you’re at best guessing.

And while guessing is a form of decision making.

Educated guesses are better than biased guesses.

So here we sat.

This prospect really wants to grow.

But they’re stuck.

The best recommendation I could make was to go back and understand their process.

First process.

Then requirements.

Then consideration.

Then a decision.

We ended the conversation in a positive light.

They’d like to move forward with my company to help them get their tech right.

And so, while getting their tech right was what opened the door.

Getting their process right is what closed the deal.