Process orientation vs outcome orientation has been debated endlessly over the years. In fact, aspects of this discussion can be traced back to Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. The current thread seems to draw back to Peter Drucker’s “Management by Objectives” in The Practice of Management. But what if this is the wrong framing? Process vs Objective frames this discussion as a focus on ROI (outcomes), or on “mindlessly” executing a playbook. But how do you reach repeatable successful ROI? With a repeatable process. So process and objectives are actually more tightly bound than it seems.
Inputs vs Output Orientation Link to heading
I propose a different framing - Inputs to an organization, and outputs. I think analyzing this way will still match neatly to current discussion and criticism of Process vs Outcome.
Input Orientation Link to heading
Inputs are inputs to an organization - hours worked, butts in seats, attendance, lines of code, tokens burned, and so on. It’s interesting to note that measuring inputs is generally both legible and trivial - inputs are immediate and visible. This also maps strongly to the criticism of Process Orientation - keep shoveling, keep executing a playbook, regardless of circumstances.
I’d also like to call out one aspect that I find interesting about this framing - Engineering has inputs (hours worked, reviews completed) and outputs (lines of code written, tokens burned, features), and the outputs of Engineering do not in and of themselves have ROI! This suggests that these are inputs to the business, not outputs. Looking at a Sales organization, inputs (calls made, messages sent) and outputs (meetings booked) follow a similar pattern.
This suggests that each organization’s visible activity is each an input into the business.
Output Orientation Link to heading
Outputs are the classic Outcome Orientation - a focus on ROI for the organization. For most organizations, this means ARR or other forms of revenue (some mission focused orgs may have discrete outcomes like malaria cases prevented, but I have a focus on B2B SaaS). Unlike inputs, outputs are time delayed, and attribution is difficult. Is additional revenue attributable to the marketing copy that put a lead in a funnel, the sales rep that closed the deal, or the engineer that wrote the feature that swayed them? These results are not especially legible, and require constant legwork to attribute appropriately.
The principle value I want to highlight in this reframing is that process is not the enemy - although mindless execution of process is. In essence, you need process (to execute, to reach objectives), and a meta-process (to revise and iterate your process(es), to continue to reach objective). I also like the framing of each organization within a company working together to build the right inputs into the business.
It’s clear why many businesses favor inputs over outputs - when things are busy and chaotic, it’s reasonable to focus on what you can see. But it’s also clear that putting the wrong (or just more) inputs into a broken system won’t lead you to success. Instead, you have to change the system, the process, itself.