As software engineers, we can recoil from the idea of "process." Or maybe Process™, to give it the proper air of menace.
I won't even say we're wrong! Ineffective organizations find fig leaves of legitimacy under the idea that process is the goal, instead of a tool to help us reach a goal. To empire-builders, if you design inflict a process with lots of meetings, your ability to command others' time becomes a source of power or influence. Waterfall processes, because Waterfall is terrible, are especially susceptible: a stakeholder can sign off on a set of requirements, come back the next quarter, say "The business environment changed! You can just do something completely different real fast, right?" and unless your boss has been diligently politicking in the meantime, your stakeholder gets to show how they say "Jump" and you say "How high?".
As with anything we're spending money/time/goodwill on, our first question is: "Why are we doing this?" What do we want a process for?
It's a moment for radical honesty. We confess our panicked desire for a sense of control. Our anxiety about what we're able to tell the leadership team. Our impostor syndrome about whether we're any good at our jobs, given the troubled outcomes. Our guilt about how our persistent bugs hurt our users. Let it all out. What problem are we trying to solve, that we think process will help with?
When I meet a team with an allergic reaction to the word "process," that's okay. I've trained in and used Scrum and Kanban, and I know what each feature or technique they use is supposed to accomplish. I also know how they work together, but we don't have to eat the whole fish all at once.
- Are we taking on too much work than we can do? Let's figure out how to match our commitments with our capacity.
- Do colleagues need more visibility into our work and priorities? Let's figure out what those are, then write them down.
- Does Product Management think we're not building the right thing? Let's sit down with them and talk it through.
We're asking a lot of questions here. We have the humility to not think we know everything. We wonder what it is we don't know. We care about our craft, so how can we do it better?