Is Your Process A Rose Or A Dandelion?
This is a rose.
Roses are some of the most beautiful, and the most coveted, flowers grown on earth. But, that beauty comes at a cost.
To thrive, roses require near perfect conditions and nearly constant attention. For example, if you hope to see that luscious deep red bloom that roses are known for, then at a minimum your rose will demand
Six hours of direct sunlight each day
A bed of perfectly pH-balanced, ideally organic, well-draining soil
2-3” or coarse, once again ideally organic, mulch surrounding the rose
Infrequently, but deeply applied water, applied directly to the soil and only late in the evening
But these are only the basics. If you really want to see those gorgeous blooms, then be prepared to also take steps like
Regularly chopping banana peels and burying them around the stem of your rose...while being careful, of course, not to touch the roots
Brewing alfalfa tea for your rose and treating it’s surrounding soil to a nice afternoon cup of tea
Pulling out your iPod so your rose can enjoy the sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart. But only their early stuff...you’re rose is a classic, after all.
If you follow each of these steps consistently and without fail, then your rose may reward you with one or two blooms. In fact, you may even get to enjoy these blooms for up to two weeks...before you have to start the process over again, that is.
Meet The Dandelion
This is a dandelion.
Dandelions don’t need perfectly pH-balanced soil. They don’t need perfectly consistent watering that only occurs at the perfect time of day. And, if you try to treat them to afternoon alfalfa tea and the occasional Beethoven sonata, they’ll only laugh in your face.
Compared to roses, dandelions can grow nearly anywhere, in nearly any conditions. And, trying to kill them, seems to only make them stronger.
This is because, regardless of what’s happening in their environment, dandelions will find a way.
A Process Like A Rose
Now think about the process your team uses to deliver software each day. Which of these flowers feels the most familiar to how your team works? Is your team’s process a rose, or is it a dandelion?
We’ve all seen rose-processes. Rose-processes are filled with complicated rules and procedures that must be adhered to. They demand the full attention of the teams who are implementing them and create a plethora of roles and ceremonies that must be strictly followed if they are going to work.
But, when they do work, they are beautiful. They create a clean and streamlined environment in which your team can ship software, and they stay that way as long as the environment that you’ve created for them remains stable and constant. Which, if you’ve ever worked in any technology environment, you know the words ‘stable’ and ‘constant’ typically aren’t the words that spring to mind to describe it.
Becoming A Dandelion
Dandelion-processes, on the other hand, can thrive in nearly any environment. This is because rather than expecting the environment to adapt to their needs, dandelion-processes adapt themselves to the reality of their environment.
A dandelion-process demands little of the team who chooses to practice it, often no more than a few loosely defined roles and ceremonies. In fact, dandelion-processes often prescribe little about how these roles and ceremonies should even be implemented, instead leaving it up to the team to implement them in whatever manner is most likely to succeed in their environment.In fact, dandelion-processes are so robust that they always seem to find a way to crop back up even when an organization tries to stomp them out. Perhaps it’s the natural resiliency of a dandelion-process that permits this or perhaps it’s simply the insistence of the teams who practice them to want to use a simple process that works, but in either case, dandelion-processes have a way of always coming back.
Any Process Can Be A Dandelion Process
You may think that I’m hinting at certain processes as rose-processes and other processes as dandelion-processes, but this actually isn’t true. While certain processes may naturally find themselves gravitating towards a rose’s fragile beauty while others may naturally gravitate towards a dandelion’s robust utilitarianism, the truth is that any process can be rose or a dandelion.
It all comes down to how each team decides to practice the process they choose to adopt. Given enough time, even the most lightweight and minimalist of processes can gradually accrete enough supporting processes and value-adds to incur the fragility of a rose. While, when boiled down to their essence, even the most complex processes can start to show dandelion-like qualities.
The secret is to understand that whatever process your team adopts, that process is a means to ship great software...not a goal. When the process becomes your focus, any process has a tendency to grow to demand the constant nurturing care of a rose in order to bloom. But, when you remember that the process is there only to support your team and its goal of a shipping software, then you can be sure to keep your process lightweight, robust, and capable of thriving in even the most unidealistic of situations, just like the dandelion.