Process Sediment
Every process was once a solution. Most have outlived the problem they were built to solve.
Nobody installs a bad process on purpose. Every sign-off, every approval chain, every mandatory template was once a sensible response to a real problem.
Then the problem disappeared. The process stayed.
Asana’s 2023 Anatomy of Work report: 58% of a knowledge worker’s day is spent on “work about work.” Not the work itself. The rituals around it.
Process sediment accumulates like geological layers. Each generation adds a new one. Nobody removes the old ones because nobody remembers why they exist, and removing something you do not understand feels riskier than keeping it.
Audit one process today. Ask: does the original problem still exist?
SOURCE Structure