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What Is 'Process Overhead'?

• Processes are usually helpful, but too many processes can harm your effectiveness or efficiency.
• If a process isn't helpful, remove it.
• Encourage the people who are responsible for a process to update and change it as circumstances change.

Josh Kaufman Explains 'Process Overhead'

It’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

Processes aren’t free: every procedure or Checklist in a system has a cost that is paid in time, energy, and Attention. Process Overhead is the amount of system capacity spent on internal processes instead of other value-creating activities.

Business systems often have significant amounts of Process Overhead: mandatory status meetings, reports, rules, and paperwork. These practices are adopted for valid reasons: communicating information is important and valuable, as is tracking progress toward shared Goals and eliminating preventable errors by following Standard Operating Procedures. The problem appears when all of those separate practices Accumulate to the point where they represent the bulk of the organization’s capacity and effort.

Processes have a point of Diminishing Returns, so it’s useful to identify and eliminate processes that are no longer necessary. Processes should not be defined via top-down mandate or maintained just because they exist. It’s best to keep your processes flexible and expect that they’ll change or become unnecessary over time. Once a process outlives its usefulness, Cessation is valuable and warranted.

The people who are most qualified to create and maintain processes are the people closest to the work: give them the flexibility and control necessary to update or remove processes that no longer serve the intended purpose.

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"Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary three times as fast."

Peter Drucker, father of modern management theory

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