Processes, Guidelines, or Nonsense?
The Art of Balancing Fast and Careful
Across my career, I’ve seen every possible flavor of process — and its cousins: guidelines and personal style. I’ve also seen how people repeatedly (and sometimes annoyingly) confuse them, whether out of ignorance or intent.
Twenty years ago, I started my career in a startup that had no processes. We brought your own computer. There was no security policy, no bug-tracking system, and hardly any rule for anything. When we installed Bugzilla and started using instant chat, it felt revolutionary.
Those were the “let’s just make it work” days — we focused on writing code and keeping customers happy because we weren’t sure when the next paycheck would come.
That was it. Nothing else.
Then came the automotive world — where everything had a process. We even joked that we probably needed one to visit the restroom (In some projects, that wasn’t far from reality). We spent over 75% of our time managing the process, not the product.
It was exhausting. And many of us left — not because we couldn’t handle complexity, but because we couldn’t handle nonsense.
Later on, with more experience (and a few scars from unnecessary red tape), I worked on process transformation in a couple of companies. I intentionally avoid the word “agile” here — I’ve seen it twisted to mean more meetings, more documents, and less actual work.
Our real goal, though we didn’t phrase it that way back then, was simple: Deliver value fast and stay competitive.
Transformation Principles
To make things simple, we used four principles that guided the transformation:
Focus on Customer Value Early
The era of making customers wait is over. Deliver something early, then improve it. No one wants to sit in the dark for months waiting for the big reveal.Processes Are for Critical Steps
Processes exist for things that must happen in a fixed order — to prevent disaster or significantly reduce cost.
Think: “Install electric wiring before laying tiles” — not “get four approvals for every line of code.”Default to Guidelines and Checklists
Most tasks don’t need a strict process; they need direction.
A checklist, a shared principle, or a reminder of what “good” looks like — that’s usually enough to stay flexible and consistent.Increase Team Autonomy and Accountability
You can trick a process. You can’t trick accountability.
The right people, in the right structure, will deliver without needing permission every five minutes.
Processes vs. Guidelines: Know the Difference
Processes are about “how we must do this to avoid disaster.” They ensure compliance, consistency, and safety. Think: test before production or confirm with compliance.
Guidelines are about “how we might do this better.” They’re flexible, evolving, and rely on judgment. Think: use this checklist before merging code.
In short: Processes prevent failure; Guidelines enable success.
The Art of Balance
Too many processes — and companies suffer. Innovation slows, talent leaves, and everything moves in slow motion.
Too few processes — and you wake up every day to a new fire, compliance issues, or wasted time figuring out how to do things from scratch.
Balancing processes, guidelines, and innovation is an art. The smart teams I’ve seen don’t wait for auditors or consultants to tell them what’s broken. They do small, regular check-ins to see if what they agreed on still makes sense.
Most teams focus heavily on delivering new stuff — and some time to improve how they deliver. You don’t need a committee for that.
An improvement log, where you pick one thing every now and then to fix, works wonders.
Style
Something people don’t usually speak about: style — the personal preference that sneaks into process discussions.
I’ve seen executives insist their favorite way of coding, planning, or communicating become “the company process.” Not because it was better, but because it was theirs.
You’ve probably seen this too.
Sometimes it’s easier to just follow along. But knowing the difference between process, guideline, and style changes everything — it gives you clarity and influence instead of quiet frustration.
Some Last Words
(Because my AI assisstant insisted that I wrote some)
In the end, the goal isn’t compliance — it’s results. Processes exist to serve people, not the other way around. Keep that order straight, and everything else falls into place.
Until another day 👋🏽.