Twice last week I came across the world of Policies.
A few years ago, when it was fashionable, I toyed with the concept of my firm becoming registered for BS5750, now ISO9001. It was becoming a ‘badge’ which many people had latched onto – those procuring work had an easy question – “are you registered for BS5750?”. So because we were being asked we thought we needed to do it. I had, in fact, come across it many years before – my fathers business was engineering and they had been registered for many years.
Whilst it fit the engineering world it certainly didn’t sit comfortably with the world of a multi-disciplined surveying practice. We eventually came to the conclusion that it was forms for forms sake. It was a system which got in the way of what we did, rather than help it. We have discipline in lots of ways (mostly driven by our professional Institution) – but these are measured and relevant.
Then last week I heard mention of writing a Policy for some work that my son was doing. He works in a school and they divide the work out on an amicable basis, depending on who has time and who has the skill set. It’s a low tech solution, but works in a small team. But someone had suggested to him that he should write a Policy so that they made sure that the division of work was fair, that work was capable of being prioritised an that the right people were employed. The suggestion came from someone in the NHS.
Whilst it is not for me to criticise the NHS (I might need them one day!) I do wonder if we have created such a complex animal that it need rules and processes for everything. I figure that it probably does.
But we don’t always need a process, a policy or a set of forms. Sometimes we just need to speak to each other and agree on who is doing what?
