Do you need to loosen up? More specifically, do you need to get your IT organization to loosen up when it comes to enforcing processes? To keep users from undermining the procedures they view as unwieldy, IT needs to learn how to bypass its processes when they aren't suited to a situation, advises Bob Lewis.

"Everyone hates process," Lewis warns in a post at InfoWorld. "The evidence is all around you. From the help desk to the corner office, employees do their best to subvert even the best-intentioned processes whenever they seem inconvenient."

Allowing users to get around your processes without losing control is the trick to successfully lightening up, Lewis suggests. It involves knowing the difference between "processes" and "practices". "Process" involves "a well-defined sequence of steps that lead to repeatable, predictable results," which sounds nice but can lead to a bureaucratic, overly formal atmosphere. "Practice" involves more creativity and individual initiative, which seems more fun and leads to greater adaptability.

"This doesn't mean practices are superior to processes. It means most people, most of the time, like them better. One look at the traditional help desk shows you all you need to know," Lewis writes.

To dissuade users with tech problems from calling up the IT analyst they like best, IT groups have typically set up a help desk, come up with an incident management process which is followed until a problem has to be escalated above the help desk. "Meanwhile, 'favorite analysts'--those who have established reputations for solving problems quickly--are instructed to refuse any and all calls for assistance. They may only work on incidents the help desk escalates to them," he writes.

The result, in Lewis's view: "Everyone will hate it, for the same reasons everyone hates all business processes. It traps everyone into a one-size-fits-no-one way of dealing with situations, and because the help desk is the part of IT that everyone has the most contact with, all of IT's reputation suffers."

His solution is the "process-bypass process," which allows you to skip over your formal steps when a situation calls for it. Well designed processes are still used when appropriate, but your willingness to bypass then when they don't fit the situation can make IT look a lot better.

For more, see:
- Bob Lewis's post at InfoWorld

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