OK, so we need a process for document creation, review, and release. You'd think we'd have that by now. But no, each group has its own way of doing things and ours, which struck me as rather informal coming in, is finally seen is inadequate. So, once again, we're reinventing our own particular type of wheel.
And that's fine and all but here's the thing that annoys me: Overuse of god damn PowerPoint™ to document the process. It's a fine tool and I will use it. It's the overuse that annoys me. I read the draft as any random employee would read it, just wanting to know what's the minimum I'm supposed to do so I don't get yelled at. Give me a few bullet points and I'll satisfy those. But no! The creator of this thing (I'm editing it) made long lists of steps to take and flow charts and sample spreadsheets and fuck, who's going to read all that? I mean, who's really going to pay attention to all those minute details and then follow them? This ain't government. Our end goal is quality, not checking off the boxes.
So. What to do? I'll tell you what to do. I'm going to throw most of it out. People get brownie points for making presentations that show they covered every angle but you know what? Fuck that. The only angle that matters is the end result, and if that works out then either each document owner followed a good procedure, or they didn't bother because it was not a procedure they could follow and they just got lucky. I'm going to throw most of it out and make the god damn thing usable. Three, four bullet points, with one or two explanatory notes for each. Questions?
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5 comments:
No? No sir. No questions. Cookie?
No questions. Just YEAH THAT.
We don't do that. I'm not even sure what it is.
Don, I heard there was a problem with your TPS reports...
This is a peeve of mine. That's right, I have MS Office peeves.
An open letter to everyone Don works with and also everyone else in corporate America:
Powerpoint is for presentations. Presentations are high-level visual aids used to help your audience mentally organize the details you'll be talking about in your presentation. Yes, presentations involve talking. Powerpoint presentations properly done should have no more than four bullet points per slide. Five's okay if you really need them, but chances are you don't. Flow charts? Three lines, 12 boxes, max. I love Excel more than the average girl, but embedded spreadsheets have no place in any presentation except one you're using in an Excel class.
If you want more detail than that on paper, it's because you either won't be presenting it or you've got sucky presentation skills. Either way, your document is not a presentation. It's documentation. Documentation is properly done in Word.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
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