Back in October we began a project to assess many of our internal processes, including those in my angry little world of IT.
This proctologic exam was undertaken to prove that, among other things, we keep private data private. The assessment proved what I already knew to be true. We do, in fact, keep private data private. That’s why we call it private. Go fig.
This whole thing was a new endeavor for me, and let me tell you, there are tender areas of my body that still hurt.
Now, to make an agonizing story shorter for your sanity, let’s just say that when we received the “draft” report* I discovered that many of the information in the 66 pages was just blatantly wrong. So I found myself in the unenviable position of rewriting the report.
Actually, it was worse than that. I couldn’t just rewrite the damned thing. Instead I had to give a point-by-point change list of what was wrong and what was right, because, you see, the folks doing the assessment had to write and sign off on the report themselves. CYA, thy name is the 21st Century business world.
The good news is that it was this very process that reminded us in IT here at Journyx of the usefulness of checklists. My suffering was assuaged ever-so-slightly by the fact that I was able to go through our checklists (expertly designed by, well, me) and use them to quickly and efficiently comment on each and every page where inconsistencies were found.
Some people call this kind of thing project management; I just call it getting my stuff in order.
It’s amusing to me that the very people responsible for handling the assessment do not have their own checklist in place and must rely on the people that they’re working with to ensure that the data they themselves have to sign off on is accurate. Think about that for a while.
*Whenever I hear the word “draft,” I remember one of my creative writing profs back in college who admonished us by saying, “Never waste my time with a draft. If you don’t think it’s a final product, what makes you think I want to read it?” I truly understand his point now.
-The Grumpy Journyx IT Guy