This document discusses balancing processes and outcomes in large organizations. It argues that organizations should: 1) Only maximize processes and standardization when outcomes are repeatable. Otherwise, minimize processes. 2) Reward outcomes when they are repeatable, and reward processes when outcomes are not inherently repeatable. 3) Process-driven companies should reward results, not just process compliance. Companies without clear processes should reward the processes used, not just outcomes. Balancing a focus on processes and outcomes in this way can help large, complex organizations overcome conflicts between "process people" and those who dislike processes.

1. “Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76
*

2. *
*A Typical Global Company
*Fortune 500/1000
*200 Divisions
*40 Countries
*25000 Employees

3. @ Acme Inc.
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4. *
*Original Question “Our Organization is
Confused at Best… we have Process People who
push Processes everywhere they can… and we
have people who Hate Processes… it’s a War
Zone!!! …what should we do?”
*The Correct Question - “Lets look at a
framework to understand both and then and
only then take the decisions”

5. And The Philosophy Behind The Answer
*

6. *
*The Process Guys will push process in everything
they do and everything the organization attempts to
do and force everyone else to do things their (The
Process) way.
*And then there are “Others…” who will get rid of
Any and All Processes… because they say it hinders
their work…
*So Who is Right???
*Processes are usually more akin to
Manufacturing, Standardization, Repeatability
approaches…
*And the absence of them is frankly quite the
opposite… and very common in Knowledge Work…

7. *
*What do you reward or focus on? The Means or The
End?
*The Answer: If the End is uncertain focus on The
Means… If the Means are extremely Reliable and the
End is almost certain focus on the End…
Certainity Risk Reward
1High Low Outcome
2Low High Process

8. *
* Process driven companies harp about Process Excellence and such
things, so naturally they reward employees and divisions in terms of
Process compliance and efficiency
* The other companies don’t follow too much processes and setup
rewards based on Success or Outcomes…
* The Solution
* The process companies follow processes because they have (or design
for) relatively assured outcomes hence they shouldn’t correlate their
rewards with Processes but rather Outcomes
* The other firms have no assurance of Results/Outcomes and hence
they are wrong in rewarding based on the Outcomes or Success (with
exceptions) They should actually be rewarding everyone based on
what ingredients they put in towards the Outcome and not the
Outcome itself. i.e. reward The Process (or Collaboration/Culture etc.
etc.)
* Here in lied the Conundrum!

9. *
* You should only Maximize Processes (& Mass Standardization)
when the Outcome is (or can be made) Repeatable
* When the Outcome is not inherently Repeatable then you should
actually Minimize Processes
* This brings us to the Second part of the Conundrum…
exemplified in the table above
What To Do? What To Reward?
Repeatable Outcome Maximise Processes Reward The Outcome
Non-Repeatable Outcome Minimize Processes Reward The Process

10. *
* Sales (Extremely Uncertain)
* Don’t reward Deals reward the Sales Process, Values, Principles and
Practices
* Marketing (Extremely Uncertain)
* Don’t ask for ROI reward the Purpose, Process & Effort
* R&D (Extremely Uncertain)
* If Inventions/Innovations deliver Value reward based on Value
* Or else reward the Process and the Effort that went into it
*** Am I weird??? No! contrary to what people believe… this will actually lead
to emergence of Super Optimal Results.
* The Solution
* Process Companies shouldn’t reward Process Compliance but rather Results
* Non-Process Companies shouldn’t focus exclusively on Results but reward
the Process

11. *
Aditya!!!