People screw up. Every single one of us. There are the anonymous screw-ups that no one but us recognizes, and then there are the public ones—the embarrassing disasters where you look up and all eyes on the team are on you. Whoops.

To prevent these screw-ups, the more organized members of the team create process. Their goal is to provide structure around the work we do and to eliminate guessing. These people are well intentioned, but they still annoy the folks who know, first, we’re always going to screw up no matter how much process we have and, second, that screwing up often reveals more useful information than not screwing up.

Process creates a delectable, healthy tension between those who measure and those who create. In this tension, there are useless meetings, yelling in the hallways, and flame mails. I’d like to think the following chapters will help you avoid these conflicts, but you need them. Like a good screw-up, a healthy argument provides a different perspective, which, if everyone is paying attention, will help the process evolve. And love it or hate it, the process is how you build a product.