Process or Product?

I have been doing a lot of thinking about jobs, work, and careers lately and one thing that came to mind is a concept that many people that crochet or knit known and understand well. And that is identifying what about the craft they enjoy, are they a process or product person.  I realized that can very easily apply to a job/career as well.  

All of my corporate work experience is in some area of financial data or banking.  As I looked at job postings I would often see a phrase that was similar to "must be passionate about XYZ industry".  On one level I completely understand how that would be a benefit for the employee and even the employer, however that doesn't always mean that passion can mean the person is the best for the job.

What is Process vs. Product?

I am going to define what I mean in terms of process vrs product as an employee.

Process: A person that is a process employee probably doesn't have love or hate for the industry they just like the process of doing their job, and can have multiple things going to have some variance in the activity.

Product: A person that is project employee probably loves the company or industry.  They may not like the process at all but want the end result of doing something positive for the company or industry that they are in.

Are you one or the other?

I will go out on a limb and say that this is not a simple clear cut answer of you are one or the other because humans are rarely that simple.  However, I believe that each person tends to mostly associate with being either process or product driven, in both their personal and professional lives.

In my professional life I am certainly more process driven.  I very much enjoy the process of guiding a product through its life cycle, working on schedules for feature creation, enhancement, and even bug fixes.  Even doing some of the mundane things like documenting things, talking to users to find our why they want something rather than simply following what they say they want.

Of course there are occasionally a feature that really excites me and for that segment of job I am all in as a product employee for whatever reason.  These features tend to be the exception and that is ok by me because overall I enjoy the process of being a product manager a lot more than the individual product.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What to do when it seems that the world is on fire?

 First of all DO NOT PANIC!  Nothing good ever comes from panicking. Second, take a deep breath and then say a prayer, then count your blessings.  People that lean into their faith are happier.  Here and here Third, focus on your small circle what is going on there and focus on that.  So the stock market is crashing you really can't do a how heck of a lot about that other than don't panic.  So focus on what you have been doing to care for yourself and your family, use this time to identify an area or two to be frugal.  Being wise with your money is always a good thing, and this is a way to make lemonade. Fourth, largely ignore the news especially that of overseas tragedies.  Humanity sucks, but it is also beautiful.  We were not designed to have all of this information especially horrific information coming at us 24/7/365.  There is absolutely nothing I can do about some far off place to make it better, if I focus on those areas I feel ...
Read more

Hole in the ground tour - Arizona

Image
I am not saying that Arizona is a hole in the ground but it has a few famous ones, so that is what I nicknamed this vacation.  The ones we saw were: Meteor Crater Sunset Crater Montezuma Well The Grand Canyon The one we almost saw was lava river cave tube, technically it is open year round, but in the spring and summer months you can use a forest service road to drive to it and then you have about a 3/4 mile hike.  If the road is closed it is a 4 1/2 mile hike, it was in our plan to see at the end of April, but the road was still closed.  As we drove past the closed road we did see some random small piles of snow in Flagstaff.  I think it would have been cool (pun intended) since the cave stays between 32-44 degrees year round.  Sunset Crater, Montezuma Castle, and the Grand Canyon are all part of the National Parks system and they accept the America the Beautiful Annual Pass .  If you are going to multiple National Parks look up the individual fees, it m...
Read more

Eliminating some proccessed food where to start?

As I have started to eliminate some of the processed foods, I have a varied approach.  Sometimes I try for less processed or processed but NonGMO foods, and sometimes I go for things made from scratch. Items that I now make from scratch (at least 90% of the time) Pasta sauce Pie crust Cookies Granola Items that I make from scratch occasionally Rolls Bread Pretzles Items that I swapped to NonGMO Baking Powder  Things I am trying to find alternatives for Instant Oatmeal Chicken nuggets Stove Top Stuffing Bisquick pancake and baking mix For the instant oatmeal I found a few recipes on line that I will try out.  I do actually have the time to make regular old fashioned oats in the morning, but the problem is one of texture, one of my kids doesn't like it and I can relate.  So rather than fight that I want to look for better healthier options.  The reason I picked this was a friend posted a comparison of the ingredient list for Quaker Oats Instant oatmeal in the US v...
Read more