DBASC INSIGHTS — MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY

The spreadsheet began as a useful way to organise the work. Now several departments maintain their own versions, actions depend on email reminders and management needs someone to reconcile the position before every meeting.

By David Bowman — Founder of DBasc and co-founder of Zebsoft

When an organisation reaches this point, the immediate question is often which software to buy. A useful first step is to establish what must be controlled, who owns it and how the work should move from one person to the next.

Those decisions provide the requirements for a platform and a basis for checking whether the change has improved the way the organisation operates.

Start with the purpose of the activity. A register of complaints, for example, supports a process that receives concerns, assesses them, investigates causes, assigns action and checks the outcome. Its columns represent only part of that work.

Follow a recent case from beginning to end. Include decisions made in emails, evidence stored in folders and informal conversations that move the work forward. Identify where people wait, repeat an entry or rely on someone remembering what comes next.

Use that understanding to agree the intended process. Decide which steps remain necessary, which can be simplified and what a completed case should demonstrate.

Agree who owns the process and which roles can create, update, review, approve or close a record. Consider who needs visibility and whether that access should vary by department, site or activity.

Define what happens when an owner is absent or a case needs to move to another team. Make the transfer of responsibility explicit and preserve the information the receiving person needs.

These decisions give access controls a practical purpose. They also help prevent a shared system becoming another place where everyone can see an issue but nobody is clearly expected to resolve it.

Different teams may use the same label for different things. One department marks an action complete when work is submitted; another waits for approval. Combining those records can produce a misleading view unless the meanings are aligned.

Define the important fields, classifications and status changes. Establish which information is required at each stage and how records connect to people, locations, equipment or other activities.

Give shared reference information an owner. Someone needs responsibility for maintaining consistent names, categories and other values on which reliable searching and reporting depend.

Describe what should happen when work is submitted, approved, rejected or overdue. Identify the person who needs to know, the action expected and the point at which an unresolved issue requires escalation.

For each notification, ask what the recipient can usefully do with it. Agree reasonable timescales and consider whether the people receiving the work have capacity to respond.

Also define management visibility. A useful requirement might be to identify overdue corrective actions by owner and significance, with access to the evidence and reason for delay. That is more specific than asking for a dashboard.

Review the existing information for duplicates, missing owners, inconsistent labels and obsolete entries. Decide which records need to remain active and how historical information will be retained and retrieved.

Agree how existing fields map to the new structure. Pay particular attention to identifiers, dates, status values and links to supporting evidence. Preserve the context needed to understand earlier decisions.

Use a controlled trial transfer and check the result against the source. Examine record counts, important values and relationships, including attachments where relevant. Assign an owner to resolve discrepancies before accepting the transfer.

Choose an initial scope with a clear owner, identifiable users and a result that can be assessed. Include representative exceptions in the trial, such as missing information, a rejected submission or an absent approver.

Allow time for the people involved to learn the process and raise difficulties. Test what each role needs to do and see, including any access that should be restricted.

Agree when the new system becomes the authoritative place for live work. If old and new arrangements run together temporarily, define which one governs decisions and how changes will be reconciled. Keep that transition under clear ownership.

Establish a baseline before the change where practical. Consider time spent preparing reports, chasing actions or finding evidence, alongside the quality and timeliness of the work itself.

After introduction, check whether ownership is clearer, information is more dependable and exceptions reach the right people. Look for new workarounds or duplicate records that indicate the process still needs attention.

Keep someone responsible for maintaining the arrangement as roles and requirements change. A controlled management system depends on ongoing ownership as well as its initial configuration.

START WITH YOUR CURRENT ARRANGEMENTS

Tell David where the records are held, who depends on them and what takes the most effort to coordinate. We can establish a practical starting point for improving the system.

info@dbasc.co.uk — 07506 767166