July 20, 2006
Dear Everyone:
Before I forget, there might not be a Letter next week. I have finally decided to take my computer into the PC doctor next Monday to see if they can figure out what’s wrong with it. Ever since the day I got it, this computer has been s-l-o-w. Once you turn the thing on and it boots up, you can’t really do anything for the first ten minutes. That seems wrong to me.
I remember that “Jeannie” got nearly the same make from the same manufacturer a few years ago and it had problems until the help desk told her it had shipped from the factory with a worm installed on it. I suspect something like that here as well. Hopefully, the PC doctors will be able to fix it; but it may have to stay in the hospital for a few days.
In other news…
Last year one of our Operating Companies (OpCo) decided that they should improve the manner in which they manage their records, both paper and electronic. I was brought into the resulting project briefly at one point because the Project Manager wanted some help with manipulating the data. More recently, I’ve come into the project again because of the expectation that the OpCo would use the document management system that I handle training for to hold all the electronic records.
We’ve had numerous meetings (every Tuesday 2:30-4:00 and beyond) regarding how to handle this change of operation. Change Management is a big thing at our company. In fact, this very OpCo has a team devoted to Change Management. So we’ve had lots of meetings to prepare for the big Electronic Clean Up Day that’s coming the first of August.
Actually, we’re starting with a pilot involving a group of about 30 people. In the meantime, Microsoft has been making promises about an application that the company will probably start using next year. (I can’t say anything more about that because of nondisclosure rules.) Suddenly, some of the managers in the OpCo have begun to question why their people should have to learn to use the document management system now when they’ll most likely be using the Microsoft product next year.
(I’ve been keeping my mouth shut regarding my personal expectations of Microsoft’s product. Anyone remember Windows 95?)
So, as of 5:00 yesterday, the OpCo Vice President decided not to go with the document management system, leaving it up to individuals to decide if they want to use the system or just keep their electronic documents on something called a shared drive. Thus our entire presentation had to be rewritten this morning.
A shared drive is simply a special kind of computer that allows many different people to store their electronic files in a common area. That way they can share their files with other users. The only problem is: Everyone stores things differently. This is nothing new. One of my other customers, in “Hobby”, has been cleaning up their shared drive files and found as many as 30 copies of the same document filed in 30 different places.
So one decision we did get approved is that the OpCo people who prefer to use the shared drive still have to use the same folder structure that we put in place in the document management system. They won’t be able to create any folders of their own. This will cut down on confusion in one area while ramping up confusion for people who can’t decide which folder they should use.
To help with this, we’re coming up with “job aids”, a kind of cheat sheet that says, “If you have employee expenses, they should go in this folder. On the other hand, if you have purchase orders for furniture, put them in that folder.”
In the meantime…
We’re having a heat wave here in
Love, as always,
Pete
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