Yesterday, QA asked me to issue some document on a project. That means I will spend all this morning in creating these document. First of all, I fully agree to mandate some necessary document in fulfilling the project management process. However, the document requirement shall never mismatch the size and agility of their correspondent project. If the document supervisor forgets this point, the document requirement will unavoidably become a painful process.

In his recent book ‘The Art of Project Management’, Scott Berkun introduced a checklist when creating process:
□ They accelerate progress.
□ They prevent problems.
□ They make important actions visible and measurable.
□ They include a process for changing or eliminating the process.
□ People impacted by them are in favor of them.

These criteria are obviously too strict, especially on the last one. Processes are rules, and rules always make someone unhappy if you want some others happy. However, the process maker shall keep the first and fourth point in mind. Seeing the reality in our organization, I think add another point to the checklist is necessary: They are not created to create work for their creator. In the case of our QA document, I am convincing that the process is aimed at making extra work so that the creator's job seems more important.