Last updated on 2019/09/26
One of the ways to be successful in any endeavor is to build a process around an act for goal and to follow that process every time you do it. This builds habits and ensures success. I am a big believer in processes and will be talking about them a lot on this blog. Right now I want to focus on a specific process: Posting a new blog entry.
First of all, this is my first post regarding a process. As I will get into in much detail later, you don’t need to get a process right the first time you do it. In fact – if you ever make a process that seems to be 100% right the first time you execute it then you need to step back and seriously think about what the process is, how it can be improved, and why you think that it was perfect the first time through. No plan will survive first contact with an enemy, and no process will be perfect upon first execution.
Random bonus historical sidetrack. Know where the enemy planning mantra comes from? I would have guessed Patton or some other military general that is prominently featured in America history books. I would have been wrong. While there are many variations on this idea that have been attributed to direct quotes from various people like Dwight Eisenhower, the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon, and even similar ideas from Sun Tzu – the general consensus appears to assign ownership of this quote to the illustrious Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (how awesome of a name is that??). In an essay written in 1871 titled ‘Ueber Strategie’ (aka ‘On Strategy’) he wrote:
The material and moral consequences of every major battle are so far-reaching that they usually bring about a completely altered situation, a new basis for the adoption of new measures. One cannot be at all sure that any operational plan will survive the first encounter with the main body of the enemy. Only a layman could suppose that the development of a campaign represents the strict military application of a prior concept that has been worked out in every detail and followed through to the very end.
Sorry, not sorry for the sidetrack. That was interesting! Ok, back to a posting process. Even a very simple process like positing a new blog entry can be evaluated for improvement. Let’s make up a posting process right now, test it, and see how it can be improved. Here is the original process:
- Write a post. While this may be a process in and of itself, let’s leave that to another discussion and assume success in the ability and methodology to put coherent words down for a new post
- Proofread the post. Let’s ensure that it sounds ok, reads ok, and doesn’t have any glaring typos or grammatical issues
- Get exited. Another post is done. We are well on the way to hitting the 2 posts per week goal for this week
- Hit the publish button. A new post is up. Celebrate!
Done. Lets run it through. Check, check, check, check. Posted. Now, we evaluate what just happened. What was the goal here? The goal was to write a set of steps that can be easily repeated to ensure that a new batch of words is posted on the blog. Set of steps? Done. New post on the blog? Done. So where are we at right now? The first experiment on this process was just run. Was it successful? Well, a post was created on the blog that is at least coherent and without major flaws in terms of grammar and spelling. Is that enough to claim success?
I am going to make a strong claim at this point in the discussion that there is no perfect process. In effect, there are no processes that can be equated to mathematical facts. In math there are facts that serve as simply true statements where we all agree. In contract, theories are established explanations confirmed through testing but is not elevated to the absolutes of a fact. I am making an argument that a process can never achieve the absoluteness of a fact, but will always remain in the realm of a theory. It may be that a process gets to the point that it is widely accepted after significant testing and validation. At that point I would call the process a “best practice”. However, just as a theory can and should continue to be tested and validated, so should a Best Practice process. Just because we have reached something that looks like an endpoint does not preclude changing, modification, or invalidation. We must keep testing and validating for it to remain a Best Practice.
Just’s get back to the posting process. If you haven’t guessed, no I would not consider this a Best Practice. It was written, run once, and even though there was a successful result, one data point does not prove that this is solid. In fact, if you are feeling frustrated that such a stupidly simple process was picked to illustrate these ideas, good. I deliberately chose a stupidly simple process here. I also chose one that I knew while writing was incomplete. The first changes that need to be made here are in regards to tags and categories. I want to have good tags for searching on every post and to collect posts together into general groupings that the categorization functions on WordPress allow. So right away I need to add at least 2 steps to the process to ensure that I have proper metadata and organization around any new posts.
Second of all, even after these changes we can’t call this a Best Practice. There simply is not enough data and testing to validate this yet. One of the biggest risks to processes is assumptions. If I called this a Best Practice right now today I am effectively stating that I understand the entire process, all options, and have made all relevant decisions related to a new blog post. I can 100% guarantee that I do not understand the process well enough to do that yet. This is a pitfall that can be easy to fall into. We think we fully understand something – but I have been using this latest version of WordPress for only a few weeks now. While I have done a deep dive on setup, settings, and structure, I in no way understand all of the settings and variables present here. What happens if down the road I make a back-end settings change and it affects the posting process and I suddenly am missing big important features that I should be using? That is how an assumption can really hurt a process. By recognizing and acknowledging this up front if I make a back-end change I need to go back and re-test this process to make sure that it is still solid. Maybe it means I will never make it to a Best Practice here – but I am ok with that. Remember – even the first attempt resulted in success so no matter what success can be achieved here. Now we just want to shoot for the best success possible!
In conclusion, I have a current process that works. This process will be tested, verified, and reviewed every time a post is made. This process will be updated and re-tested if any gaps are found or if any settings are changed on the site. The current process that I will use for posting is as follows:
- Write a post. While this may be a process in and of itself, let’s leave that to another discussion and assume success in the ability and methodology to put coherent words down for a new post
- Proofread the post for spelling and grammar
- Check and add a post category
- Check and add post tags
- Review and edit the post permalink
- Use the Preview function to check spacing of text and images
- Hit the button to post it
- Get exited. Another post is done. Celebrate!
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