Is it people first or process first?

January 23rd, 2024 (about 1 year ago) • 2 minutes

No matter how robust and extensive your process is, people will always find a way to make it more efficient for them and this is not usually through the intended path. Anything that makes them move faster. And that's a good thing. It's a sign of a healthy system.

I thought about the internship project that I made a year ago. It was a project to redesign the structure of the company's internal python package. This had a goal to encourage developers to contribute in a safer manner and to make the package more maintainable.

I was proud of the project. I thought it was a good idea.

I added in a lot of new rules and processes to the project based on OSS practices. In hindsight, I think I went overboard. I was too focused on the process and not enough on the people.

If I were to do it again, I would have asked people what they wanted and what was the most important thing for them. Then work from there. The same things applies very crucially to building a startup from scratch.

Software Engineering is inherently to solve problem for people, so it has to be people first. Otherwise, who are you solving it for?

This is likely the biggest lesson I learned from my internship that I realized soon after. I'm glad I learned it early.