Business Management ABCs

External Impacts to Your Business

I was talking to a colleague about a story that involves motor vehicle crash investigations and it amused me no-end. The sad part of this is that most accidents requiring formal police investigation are fatalities – which amuse no one of course. One of the tasks required in such circumstances is to have a fixed point from which to take all measurements and use as a set point.

Apparently this was often a nearby telegraph pole (quite fixed) and a yellow spot of paint was applied to show exactly where the fixed point was. I am sure there is a more technical term rather than ‘fixed point’ but this will suffice for the story.

Such an investigation may take several return trips to the scene to gather further information, measurements, photographs etc – and the investigators were perplexed as to why the yellow spot was sometimes missing. Our immediate conclusion that we tend to jump to, is that someone is making life intentionally difficult by removing or disfiguring the said ‘fixed point’ and this may have been what the investigators thought.

However, on one particular occasion the investigator returned to the scene of an accident to find the regional telecommunications company in the midst of disconnecting all the power to the pole and pulling the pole out of the ground. A nice fresh new pole lay ready and waiting to be installed.

The investigator, perplexed and perhaps a little annoyed, demanded to know what was going on.

The telecommunications maintenance team may not have understood his annoyance and explained that they were simply replacing those poles that were due to be replaced.

Apparently their identification team travelled around determining which poles required replacement and subsequently marked these with a yellow paint spot.

So, the moral to this story is to ensure the external stakeholders who could, would or should be involved in your process are identified, included in your process documentation and, of course, involved and notified.

Management of the Records relating to communications with these parties should be managed and made available to the relevant members of your business. Goodness knows how many tax dollars were spent on replacing perfectly good dead trees.

Trudy Robinson

MCom (ecommerce) Grad Cert, Dip PM, Dip Bus, AFAIM

http://www.corporatefingerprint.com

Records with Purpose, for Purpose

A 20-Year veteran of the consulting industry, Trudy is unique among the experts as the woman who has actually developed and executed solutions to the day-to-day problems for small, medium and large businesses.

Unlike other ‘experts’ who merely conjure up good ideas or sponsor more and more software, Trudy actually produces systems, training manuals, organisational devices and mentoring that transform good strategies into great profits. She’s executed countless low-cost, proven strategies for small to medium businesses. Further, she has counselled many corporations and entrepreneurs in leveraging their business through organisational systems and mentoring.

Trudy is Masters qualified and is an Associate Fellow within the Australian Institute of Management. Trudy speaks regularly to corporate business owners and has spent many years working and travelling internationally. As one of Australia’s most respected authorities in the information products industry, she has developed a step by step system to take your workplace from chaos to control.