The pitfalls of process

Clay Shirky makes some insightful points about just why we're all so enamored with process in a post to the Many-to-Many blog:

Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity. When I was CTO of a web design firm, I noticed in staff meetings that we only ever talked about process when we were avoiding talking about people. "We need a process to ensure that the client does not get half-finished design sketches" is code for "Greg fucked up." The problem, of course, is that much of this process nevertheless gets put in place, meaning that an organization slowly forms around avoiding the dumbest behaviors of its mediocre employees, resulting in layers of gunk that keep its best employees from doing interesting work, because they too have to sign The Form Designed to Keep You From Doing The Stupid Thing That One Guy Did Three Years Ago.

In contrast, he says, the seemingly unworkable idea behind wikis -- collaboratively created sites where anyone can contribute and edit anyone else's contributions -- actually works very well for maintaining quality, so long as people are committed to doing that.