We need a process to address this issue!!

A couple of days back there was one issue at my workplace. It has been found that code reviews are taking more time than expected. There has been the discussion going on around this to solve this problem. During the discussion, a teammate suggested: “Let’s create some process to reduce delay time in Code reviews.”

This is the most common pattern I see in workplaces. If something goes wrong people just start a new process to fix that. But most of the time we may not need a new process to solve a specific problem. For example, the problem with the delay in code review is with the individual developers who are working on that particular task. Which can be easily solved by proper communication between developer and code reviewer. There is no need to introduce a new process, rather ask the developer not to delay their code review, it is as simple as that.

Also, most of the times processes create more problem than it solves. Our goal is to make sure that good quality code must be pushed on production. To archive this we have introduced the process of code review. To make sure that every code is getting reviewed we have added it as part of Agile/Scrum practice. Now code reviews are getting delayed. To solve this we will introduce another process. Now we will assign one person to monitor that everybody is following that process properly. But who will make sure that that person is doing his work properly? So we end up creating more and more processes and not only that but we also put more resources and time in making sure that everybody is following that process. And most of the time we end up creating more problems due to processes which were not there before.

Rather than introducing new process spend efforts in educating people about their responsibilities. Motivate them to take ownership of tasks. It will help to develop the leader within employee and we may not need as many processes if the employee takes ownership of tasks and shows leadership quality.

I personally believe that processes decrease the productivity of the individual. It makes sense to have a process for some specific set of problems but we should always to avoid creating processes for the problems which can be solved by simple communication over mail or personally if required.