Thanks for the comment. no, I'm actually not even talking about the process of building software, (as I stated in the post), and am anything but a "cowboy". I'm talking about all the dozens of other processes that add zero value to the product, that are put in place with the best of intentions, and add all kinds of cost....things like spending 30 minutes a day tracking time for every meeting attended against an activity/project, multiple processes taking weeks for acquiring a server, weeks spent in generating documents that are not even looked at by others, etc... hopefully that makes sense.