Document Everything
In previous articles in this series we talked about how to survive editing by committee (click on the “editing by committee” tag at the bottom to see all posts in this series). In this segment the message is simple: document everything.
This doesn’t just mean writing up work orders or project timelines, but summaries of meetings. For example, usually when I take a phone call about the project at hand, I’ll send an email summarizing our discussion. This can be presented as a clarification (e.g. “as we discussed, I will be researching the XX company and providing a short, 250 word backgrounder…”) or a question (e.g. “I know we briefly discussed the XX company backgrounder, but we never confirmed whether I should go ahead with that…)
The reason to send this email is simple: to document all discussions. Phone conversations can be forgotten, especially if you are working on a large, long-term project. This way, should a problem arise out of a miscommunication, you have your email(s) to back you up.
If there are multiple contacts on a project, you may want to cc others with this documentation as well. However, be careful with this. You don’t want to step on toes, and you don’t want to cc people who hate those “Reply All” messages. Usually I confirm up front with my main contact who needs to be cc’d on everything and who doesn’t. Then I stick to that plan unless there is a special need to cc someone to bring them into the loop.
It doesn’t take much to jot down the highlights of your conversations into an email. And as I have learned over the years, keeping a documented chain of events during can really help streamline the project process — and even cover your butt on occasion…
~Graham
Tags: editing by committee