My boss said 'process is a tax on the smart' in our standup this morning. I've been thinking about it all day.

3 comments

3 Comments

My old team lead used to say that exact same thing. It's a clever line but it's also a bit of a trap. It makes smart people feel good for ignoring rules that might actually help the team. The real trick is building just enough process to stop dumb mistakes without slowing good work down. That balance is way harder than just calling all process a tax.

the_tara6d agoTop Commenter

My last company had zero process and it was a total mess. That line just gives clever people an excuse to be lazy and make everyone else clean up their mess. The smartest engineers I know build good guardrails so they can move fast without breaking things.

gavin_kim35d ago

Yeah that "balance is way harder" part is so true. My friend's team tried to cut all process and ended up with a bug that took them three days to even find.