The Process Ninja

Have You Lost Control of Your Processes?

Is it all falling apart? Oh dear, what has gone wrong? Did you think about controls when you built that shiney new process?

When Joy Division once sang "And she showed up all the errors and mistakes, And said I've lost control again." in their eponomous song "Control" they hit the nail on the head. Control is about reducing the errors in process, it is about reducing mistakes and it is about keeping the process true to its original intent.

When you create a new process or fix a broken one you must create process controls. What I mean by this is that you must have means of keeping the process on track. Think of it a bit like a slalom skier going down a course. His goal is to get to the finish line, but he has to follow the flags or he gets disqualified. But how do you set controls?

Choosing the controls can be as simple as looking at your process and thinking about what are the drop dead, must happen steps in the process. How many you have depends on the complexity of the process (but don't overdo it). Once you have decided upon your control steps you should continually audit the process to ensure that the control steps are being adequately met.

Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division eventually committed suicide - tortured by his inner demons and his inability to control his world. Thankfully we have the simpler task of controlling business processes, but the lesson here is the same: if you lose control you can be left with nothing.

- TPN

I pushed a girl and I liked it (or a tale of non-process compliance in modern day society)

Yes, it sounds horrible but today I pushed a girl. 

She wasn't even a big girl, she was a small, Asian girl of tiny stature. But you know what? It felt good! 

Why?

Well there are rules in society - and rules are processes that we all follow. Some we are bound by (laws) and some are unspoken rules, like politeness and "doing the right thing".

In Sydney, on any train there is a rule that you must let all passengers alight from the train prior to boarding. Not only do Cityrail staff constantly remind customers of this, but it's just common sense and decency. So when I was walking off the train today (with a long queue of people behind me and in front of me getting off) I couldn't believe that this pip-squeak thought it was her right to barge onto the train right in front of me as I was trying to get off. I was so surprised I paused for a second to give her the opportunity to rectify her obvious mistake, but she continued to try to shove past me!

Big mistake. Let's just say that she received not only the most grumpy, oh-so not a morning person tongue lashing, but that she probably still has the imprint of my right shoulder festooned on her tasteless garb.

This person broke the rules; she tried to short-cut the process. And like any good process there have to be controls in place. Today I was happy to be that control!