Process vs. Products

Why the Products You Choose Determine the Process You Follow

A painter recently ended a video with the phrase:

“Process over products.”

But the interesting thing is that everything he demonstrated before saying it showed the exact opposite.

He uses #15 roofing felt as a masking shield when spraying.

Why?

Because of the properties of the product.

It’s heavy, so it lays flat and doesn’t blow around.

It’s durable, so he can move it and reuse it.

It has a straight factory edge, so he cuts the roll in half and uses that edge along the wall.

But the felt doesn’t create a tight enough seal to prevent overspray from drifting underneath it, so he adds another product: 1½-inch painter’s tape.

Think about what just happened.

The characteristics of the roofing felt told him how to use it.

Its advantages created certain parts of his process.

Its limitations created additional parts of his process.

The product dictated the process.

Change the product and the process changes.

Give him a masking product that's already the correct width, stays in place, seals the edge and can be reused, and suddenly cutting roofing felt and applying a separate strip of tape may disappear from the process entirely.

This is why I put product before process.

We see the same thing with paint.

If one coating system requires:

Primer + first coat + second coat

and another product can produce the required result with:

First coat + second coat

the product just eliminated an entire operation.

The same applies to brushes, roller covers, masking materials, abrasives, sprayers and coatings. Their characteristics determine what operations are necessary, which tools work best, how they're applied and which traditional steps can be eliminated.

My six-minute-room video is another example. Nine products are involved in producing that result. Those products aren't incidental to the process. Their capabilities are what make the process possible.

This doesn't mean execution doesn't matter. Of course it does.

It means you shouldn't establish a process first and then force every product through it.

Understand the product first. Its capabilities and limitations tell you what the process needs to be.

Product → Process → Result.

Sometimes the greatest improvement to a process isn't improving a step.

It's finding a product that eliminates the step altogether.