Process Debt

Chris Terrell

What is Process Debt? The hidden burden of inefficient processes that erode growth, employee satisfaction, and organizational success We all have a little 'process debt' in our lives and careers. In our podcast, "Process Debt," we explore the daily challenges and frustrations with the hidden systems that steal joy from our work. From personal anecdotes to professional insights, join us for insights you can used to start changing those those broken business systems .

  1. The Proximity Problem: Why the People Closest to the Fix Are the Last Ones Who Can Sell It

    قبل يوم واحد

    The Proximity Problem: Why the People Closest to the Fix Are the Last Ones Who Can Sell It

    The person closest to a broken process is usually the one least able to get it fixed. They've done the analysis, proven the solution, estimated the cost — and still can't get it on the sprint. Meanwhile, the executives who could act on it stopped feeling the pain three org chart levels ago. In this episode, Chris and Toby dig into the proximity problem: why operational pain loses signal as it travels up the chain, what that means for anyone trying to pitch a fix, and how the same dynamic plays out in SaaS rollouts when executive sponsors hand off a charter and disappear. Plus, what a garage door replacement taught Toby about what it actually looks like when front-line judgment is trusted and why that's rarer than it should be.

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  2. An MoU isn't a finish line. It's a starting gun.

    ١٩ يونيو

    An MoU isn't a finish line. It's a starting gun.

    Everybody loves the announcement. Nobody talks about the 18 months that come after it. This week, Chris and Toby use the US-Iran memorandum of understanding as a case study in what agreements in principle actually are — and aren't. Spoiler: an MOU is a lot like agreeing to get divorced. You've decided it's over. You haven't figured out who moves out, who gets the joint accounts, or what happens to everything you've built together. The hard part is still ahead. Along the way: why you should always look up what the last attempt at this actually took before you promise a timeline, the PUMP framework for pressure-testing big decisions before you're already committed, and the Pollyanna problem — why organizations structurally reward confident forecasts over honest ones, and what that costs you later. If you've ever nodded along to a kickoff presentation and thought "there's no way this takes six months" — this one's for you.

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  3. There's No I in Team, But There's a Big One in AI

    ١٢ يونيو

    There's No I in Team, But There's a Big One in AI

    AI is making individuals dramatically more productive. So why aren't teams getting better? Chris and Toby dig into the structural problem nobody's talking about: AI generates unique output every time by design, which makes it nearly impossible to operationalize across a group. They cover the confident intern problem, why code commits going up while QA debt piles up is a perfect metaphor, the MIT recall study that should give pause, and where AI is actually generating real team leverage versus where it's just making individuals faster in silos. No predictions. No hype. Just an honest look at where we are.

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  4. The Waste That Doesn't Show Up on Any Report - with Peter Weiss

    ٥ يونيو

    The Waste That Doesn't Show Up on Any Report - with Peter Weiss

    There's a concept in lean manufacturing called the gemba — the "real place" where value is actually created. You go to the gemba to see what's happening. You walk the floor. You watch the process. You find the waste. Peter Weiss spent years doing exactly that. Process engineer turned operations leader, he ran manufacturing businesses in Thailand, got his MBA, and walked into his first turnaround assignment armed with every tool he needed. The KPIs improved. The investors were happy. And every single person on the floor hated him. He lost the job after a year and a half. "Instead of looking to the outside and saying the others are all wrong," he told us, "I said it has something to do with me." What followed was a ten-day Vipassana retreat, a fundamental reorientation, and eventually a concept he now calls the inner gemba — the place inside us where information gets processed, emotions arise, decisions get made, and most of the real waste in knowledge work quietly accumulates.

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  5. The Real Waste in Knowledge Work Isn't What You Think

    ٢٩ مايو

    The Real Waste in Knowledge Work Isn't What You Think

    In manufacturing, waste is measurable. In knowledge work, it's invisible until you start tracking it. This week, Chris and Toby get into the real cost of context-switching, why the standard office software suite is designed to distract you, and what a McDonald's fry factory can teach us about why knowledge work goes wrong. They also revisit a principle that shows up in every bad rollout: we change too fast, too confidently, and without ever going to the shop floor to see what's actually happening. If you've ever ended a busy week wondering what you actually shipped this one's for you.

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  6. Coaching Trees, Corruption Trees, and the People Debt You Can't See on a Dashboard

    ٢٢ مايو

    Coaching Trees, Corruption Trees, and the People Debt You Can't See on a Dashboard

    Why do some managers keep producing great leaders — and others just keep producing turnover? In this episode of Process Debt, Chris and Toby dig into the concept of the coaching tree: how legendary coaches (and managers) pass down not just skills, but standards, culture, and ways of moving through the work. They also explore the darker flip side — the corruption tree — and why most organizations accidentally reward the people who start fires over the people who quietly prevent them. If you've ever worked for someone who made you better, or for someone who made everyone around them worse, this one will name something you've felt but never had a word for. Topics include: why great managers are invisible until it's too late, the "arsonist" pattern in business leadership, psychological safety as a precondition for any real process improvement, and what a coaching tree actually has to do with process debt. Practical, honest, and zero Six Sigma required.

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  7. AI in Your SaaS Tools: What's Actually Working (And What's Just Clippy in a Suit)

    ١٥ مايو

    AI in Your SaaS Tools: What's Actually Working (And What's Just Clippy in a Suit)

    AI is everywhere in your SaaS tools right now but is it actually helping, or just getting in the way? In this episode, Chris and Toby break down what good AI integration actually looks like ( Loom's auto-generated SOPs, Monday's document extraction, Jira's plain-English queriesThese versus what's just vendor noise dressed up as innovation. They also get into something most people aren't talking about yet: what happens when AI gives non-technical employees direct access to live business systems and nobody's built the guardrails yet. If you've ever had someone "just make a quick change" in your work management tool and spent the next hour figuring out what broke, this one's for you.

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  8. AI Didn't Get Rolled Out. It Seeped In (And That's the Problem)

    ٨ مايو

    AI Didn't Get Rolled Out. It Seeped In (And That's the Problem)

    AI showed up in your tools without a kickoff meeting, a training plan, or anyone's approval. And now it's quietly changing how your team works whether you've sanctioned it or not. In this episode, we dig into what makes this adoption moment different from every SaaS rollout you've survived before. We look at a dead-simple three-gate framework from change management researchers at Prosci — should this task be done by a human, by a human with AI, or by AI alone — and why that question is harder to answer than it sounds. We also get into the economics nobody in consulting wants to discuss out loud: when AI compresses a 10-hour job into one hour, where does that value actually go? And what happens to the organizations quietly accumulating AI-assisted process debt while nobody's watching? No hype. No predictions about AGI. Just an honest conversation about what it looks like when a technology seeps into your organization before you've decided what to do with it.

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التقييمات والمراجعات

حول

What is Process Debt? The hidden burden of inefficient processes that erode growth, employee satisfaction, and organizational success We all have a little 'process debt' in our lives and careers. In our podcast, "Process Debt," we explore the daily challenges and frustrations with the hidden systems that steal joy from our work. From personal anecdotes to professional insights, join us for insights you can used to start changing those those broken business systems .

المعلومات

  • صناع العمل
    Chris Terrell
  • سنوات النشاط
    ٢٠٢٤ - ٢٠٢٦
  • الحلقات
    ٩٠
  • التقييم
    فاضح
  • حقوق النشر
    © Chris Terrell 2024
  • موقع البرنامج على الويب
    Process Debt