Finding Your Way Through The Forest

Paula Williams

The Opportunity

We now have the technology to obtain, manipulate, and publish more information than ever before. We also have the capability to produce that information in a variety of different formats that were previously unavailable. And it’s not just paper, although in spite of the “paperless society” advocates, there still seems to no shortage of that floating around.

Unfortunately, this infatuation with information can result in more confusion, not less. Executives are finding their in-boxes, e-mail boxes, and even voice mail boxes packed with mass-produced reports of varying relevance and importance, all competing for the same limited time and attention. (Unless your company has hired additional staff to sort through the weeds.)

It’s been our experience that almost every corporation spends entirely too much time and energy producing reports that nobody reads. Generally, the larger the corporation, the more meaningless “paper” being produced and distributed.

Unnecessary reports and information are a significant waste of time and money. This overload also increases the risk of incorrect decisions and missed opportunities because needed, relevant information was buried under less vital paperwork.

The Solution

When many companies discover new ways of producing information, they simply start producing this wonderful new charts, graphs and reports in addition to the old-growth, traditional reports and documentation they’ve always done.

It may be time to analyze the documentation needs of your company or department and consider a serious overhaul, or at least major pruning.

Case Study

Jill loved her new job as a department head in a large firm, but she hated the paperwork.

Mike, her assistant, spent the last week of every month running complicated applications, (or often getting the technical folks to run them for him, because the database that contained sales information, etc. was a sometimes a bit cranky.) Mike then put the numbers he got from those reports into tables and building charts, harassed the team leads for information, hovered anxiously while Jill reviewed it, (sometimes more thoroughly than others, given her own workload!) got it proofread by the admin. assistant, and generally stressed out about getting the report to the printer on time.

Mike could relax only when copies of his prodigious efforts were printed, bound, and distributed to Jill, the CEO, and each of the other department heads. Then he had three weeks to attend to his other duties before going through this recurring emergency again.

Jill was frustrated at the piles of paper she had to go through to proof the report. She was frustrated by the fact that many of her fellow department heads and the CEO still seemed unaware of some activities in her department that would impact them, in spite of the fact that they were outlined in the report.

The team leads were frustrated with the distraction of having to collect information for Mike, often giving him the same information that they had already been through in status meetings and other forums.

Signs of Overgrown Paperwork

Is Jill's situation starting to sound familiar? That's not surprising, because most of us are dealing with antiquated reporting customs. New technology has sped up and beefed up the process, but hasn't really taken its place. It's like planting more and more plants in the same forest without allowing anything to be replaced. Eventually, the forest is so full of leaves that light and air are cut off.

Here are some signs of overgrown paperwork you might recognize in your workplace:

• Full in-boxes (including paper and e-mail)
• People who complain of being “out of the loop” or uninformed
• Having a high percentage of administrative staff (engaged in “information-handling” functions.)

Assessing the Overgrowth

Take a careful look at the information that crosses your desk (or desktop!) Consider the following questions for the report as a whole. For complex reports and documents, you might need to consider these items for each section.

• Do you understand what it is about within the first few seconds of picking it up?
• Is it relevant?
• Is it timely?
• Is it at the right level of detail?
• Is it important enough to justify the time and resources that went into compiling and publishing it?

Pruning Strategies

Here are some common “weeds” in the documentation around the typical corporate office, along with some strategies for getting them pruned back to the essential material.

Detailed Data

You receive a pile of spreadsheets every month. Would a simple summary graph be more relevant and useful? Many software packages are able to create summary information easily, then the source data could be stored electronically in a place you can refer to it if you need to.

Minutes

You receive minutes from several meetings, many of which you don’t attend in person. Do you need to read all of these or simply have access to them? Would it be helpful to be able to search for the forums in which a particular topic was discussed? Many electronic formats (such as Lotus Notes or an Intranet) would allow you to do just that.

Technical Documents

Technical departments are often required to produce specifications and other documents that are distributed outside the technical department. Often, people who are not specialists in that field find it difficult to read. If the information is vital to you, your options are:

• Get some technical training for yourself
• Get some writing training for your technical folks
• Outsource it to a technical writing firm for “translation”
• Forget the documentation and just have regular meetings with your technical leads to ensure you understand what’s going on.

Memos and Communications

Management decisions and policy changes are often distributed as memos, which may be reviewed and posted; and then may or may not become part of a permanent policy manual or other document.

Time sensitive information (status information, personnel information, information about the company party, or about an employee’s retirement or new baby) is often distributed as a memo. Organizing this type of information into a weekly or monthly periodical may take less time and effort to produce and distribute, and make it more convenient to readers, than an unpredictable spattering of memos.

Storage and Retrieval

Traditional documentation typically relies on each person’s organization system and diligence in storing information for later access. Having a companywide document storage system that is easy to use is an important step. These range from a simple folder structure on your local network, to a web-based system such as an intranet or extranet, to an elaborate software package that indexes and files each document.

Determine your company’s needs and take advantage of a system that suits your use and budget. Software for these types of systems is available that will allow you to

• Find information by type, date, or subject
• Accommodate a variety of source documents, pictures, and other media
• Search the entire structure, or within a single category (such as just “minutes”)

Back to Our Story

After evaluating the reporting system she had inherited, Jill determined that the monthly reports that were giving everyone so much stress had outgrown their original intention.

One of Jill’s predecessors, probably faced with the beginnings of the information overload, had requested that his department summarize information from a variety of sources; including detailed spreadsheets and reports, decisions and actions from status meetings, and technical developments and specifications.

Over the years, this report had grown with a number of good ideas- one manager had wanted a section added, another manager had requested that a chart or more details be added to another section. Some team leads took advantage of the monthly report as the opportunity to “showboat” their team’s accomplishments. Others felt that it was a waste of time and threw in raw technical data in order to make it look like they were contributing their fair share without doing any extra work.

Collaborating with Mike and the Team Leads, Jill came up with a structure to capture the source documents painlessly on the company’s Intranet. They built space for each team’s status report minutes, for the technical documents for each project, and for the detailed budget spreadsheets (some of these were password-protected to ensure authorized access.)

She encountered some resistance, from the CEO and other department managers who were still doing traditional-style reports and feared they would not be kept informed. Jill spent some time with each of them individually walking through different scenarios finding information they needed, and eventually, they agreed that the Intranet was easier than the piles of paper.

Unexpectedly, Jill also encountered some resistance from Mike, who expressed doubt about whether the new system would work. After some candid discussion, she discovered that Mike was worried about having his hours cut or being replaced by a more technical counterpart. Jill allayed his fears by sending him to some basic web-management training and finding new projects for him to do with his extra time. Mike has since become well-known through the company as a skilled advocate for the Intranet.

Conclusion

After two months of posting the source documents and getting people comfortable with retrieving them online when they’re needed, and fine-tuning decisions about when to send e-mail reminders with e-mail links for timely information, the monthly status report produced by Jill’s department has dwindled to two pages of compact, summary information, mostly in graphical format that highlights areas she wants to draw attention to, and referring to the source documents for more information. Other departments are following suit, and consulting with Jill and Mike on how to do just that.

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