Process

There’s a quote in this Wired interview with Elon Musk that got me thinking:

I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that “it’s all about the process,” I see that as a bad sign. The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.

I’ve also noticed that debates about ‘process’ can be time and enthusiasm-sapping — especially in startups. Certainly the best teams I’ve worked with haven’t had process, just lots and lots of ideas, problem solving and getting things done. Having said that if you don’t have a process for the mundane you can end up spending all your time coping with it and having no time for trying new things. Perhaps the thing you need to do is separate out things that just need to be made as simple as possible from things where you need to do something that nobody has ever done before.

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