Designing Good Process (Without Becoming a Bureaucracy)

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Engineers hate process. Or rather, engineers hate bad process, and most process they encounter is bad. It’s imposed from above without understanding the problem it’s meant to solve. It adds overhead without adding value. It treats every situation the same regardless of risk or complexity. No wonder the word “process” makes people flinch.

But the absence of process isn’t freedom, it’s chaos. Having worked in both process-light start-ups and process-heavy corporates, I’ve seen both failure modes up close. The start-up where nobody knew how deployments worked because there was no documented process. The corporate where deploying a one-line change required three approvals and a change advisory board meeting. Neither extreme serves the team.

Process on guy@secdev.uk

Designing Good Process (Without Becoming a Bureaucracy)