People over process. When does process win?
Hello everyone! I was in an interview for a PO position at a bank a couple of weeks ago and was asked one question that really stuck out. "In agile, when does process win?"
I thought this was a very interesting question. In a large-scale company, such as an enterprise bank, there are many processes in place due to their own governance, as well as government oversight. Things like change-management, production deployments, etc.. are enacted when there are hundreds of people across the organization doing work that could affect millions of users.
I'm curious to see what everyone comes up with as an answer. I was honestly tripped up by this question a little bit.
This is an interesting question indeed. Off the top of my head, I'd say process wins when there is a convincing case to be made for a standardised approach to something. There are things that just shouldn't be reinvented by each team, so a standardised approach across a company makes sense. It's hard to get buy-in from every single developer on these things, so in those cases, process may win (provided there is a large enough number of teams willing to go with that process).
When does process win what?
Don't we always work inside the boundaries of process? Sure, the process is subject to inspection and adaptation, but without process we would be in chaos.
Michael, the processes you mention above are born out of constraints on the system as a whole. So depending upon the rigidity of the constraints, they always 'win'.
Here, a short Video on constraints from the brilliant Dave Snowden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkz55HMfcOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7E_rXs17u0