# Processes

Whether you're compiling code or making breakfast, it can be modeled as a repeatable process. Understanding the elements of production — *inputs*, *outputs*, *timing*, *limiting steps*, *quality controls*, *variability* — lets you create and improve the machinery needed to fulfill your goals. Aim to achieve high quality results in less time with least waste.

> If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. — W. Edwards Deming

Write down processes, take measures and then iterate. **Speed of iteration beats the quality of iteration**. The difference between good and great is often an extra round of revision. You cannot improve what you cannot measure. You cannot improve what you cannot explain.

[There are three kinds of processes](https://fs.blog/tobi-lutke).

1. There's a kind of process that makes things that were previously impossible to do, possible.
2. Then there's a kind of process that makes something that was previously possible significantly simpler.
3. And then there's everything else. E.g: telling people to behave slightly different from what common sense tells them to do without making any impact.

You can [optimize processes](https://youtu.be/lhbLNBqhQkc) through [experiments](https://rs.io/how-to-get-started-with-anything/), removing barriers, adding incentives, or using technology.

When designing a process, look for these properties:

- Algorithmic. So you don't need to think about choices. This reduces mental overhead and anxiety (The Paradox of Choice).
  - A way to reduce choices is self binding (like Ulysses did). Limiting our actions in the future will reduce the choices we'll need to do.
- Flexible. Make it fluid enough to keep up with changes. [Loopholes will be abused](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDYFiq1l5Dg) if the process can't change quickly enough to fix itself.
- Low Friction. Simple processes are easier to understand and apply. [Trivial inconveniences usually have more implications than it seems](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-trivial-inconveniences).
- Short [[Feedback Loops]]. Show the results as soon as you can.
- [[Idempotence|Idempotent]] processes are easy to manage
- Write it down. Writing what's happening can be a giant leap forward in terms of getting people to agree on what the process actually is.

A process takes an input to produce an output. Group of processes can be viewed as [[systems]].

*The only purpose of good process is to produce good outcomes.* A process is not good unless it produces good outcomes.

You cannot judge the process by a single outcome. [Only a long run of outcomes tell you anything about the process](https://two-wrongs.com/statistical-process-control-a-practitioners-guide.html). Consequently, once you know what the process is like, any single outcome from that process adds nothing to your knowledge about the process. If you want to improve a process, you have to ignore the process goal first, in favour of examining the process itself and understanding it.