VALUE ADDED - Take 2

[David Mullins]

OK,
We've had plenty of variety of definitions for "value added".

Here's a scenario I'd like you to adjudicate on:

Engineers generate an internal report, which takes a couple of hundred hours. Consequently it is decided to include this document as a deliverable to the customer so that they can pay for the work. (don't judge this - just accept is as a condition of the scenario)

The report is presented for final approval before delivery to customer. It is full of inconsistent use of Proper Nouns, lower and upper case use at the start of bullet points, different use of , ; . in bullet points. Large amounts of punctuation missing at the end of paragraphs.

QUESTION:
Do you approve the report to be sent to the customer, because there is no value in spending 15 hours re-doing the 67 page report, having it reviewed again, etc, or do you have it corrected even though it won't add value to the report?

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

That sounds familiar...

Ouch...

I hate it when documents like that leave the premises... The company image must be worth something too.

Although I'm not fond of (understatement) unnecessary work either, I'd probably want it touched up... considering what it might do to the image it may not *be* unnecessary.

I'm not able to give you a conclusive answer. Of course it depends a lot on how you work with the customer in question.

/Claes

 

[JRKH]

I agree with Claes. But for more than simply image. The misuse of puctuaion etc, can change the meaning of words and sentences. Look at how difficult it can be sometimes for us to communicate clearly on these boards. We even have the emoticons to help us.

The purpose of the document is to communucate. It must be properly presented in order to do this accurately. If the document is a deliverable then it should be correct.

James

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Right, James..

You're right of course, James.

In my reply I assumed the content to be correct and the presentation to be poor, but a poor presentation or layout can easily cause mistakes...

/Claes

 

[D.Scott]

Full agreement here

A document like you describe would never leave here. What you are describing takes any value-added benefit and turns it into a potential negative.

Last thing we need is for a customer to think our highly touted engineers are really a bunch of trained chimpanzees (no slam intended toward the simian species - we all know they make better chemists than engineers).

Dave

 

[Jim Biz]

Sloppy??

What I'm seeing here is a description of a resource group with a lack of "competent, effective methods".

If trained engineers (we are talking degreed engineers - not just appointed to the job title folks right?) did not take - or did - disregard English 101, yet managed to use "hundereds of hours?" on a report... it reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon.

I would agree ... for sure don't send it out without appropriate editing ... (better yet inform tose responsible for the conntent that the customer will see and judge his/her work.

 

[Mike S.]

I have to agree. The company image has value and to preserve it, a re-work is in order here. But, to keep unnecessary costs down, I would imagine a secretary-level person could do it (correct the spelling, punctuation, etc.) and, utilizing the change-monitoring functions in most word-processing software, the engineer-authors could review the changes pretty quickly.

Mike S

 

[WALLACE]

Incomplete report.

Dave,
If you are the approving authority of the report Then, your name is what shall be seen on the approval line, If the report is clear and understandable, that's the purpose of the report.
The spelling, gramatical and layout mess are the problems so, why don't you get to the root cause of this problem by addressing training?
Wallace.

 

[David Mullins]

some more points

1. Yes we're talking degree qualified engineers.
2. Claes, we're talking a Swedish owned company, so your impressions from a cultural viewpoint are also valid.
3. Dilbert is this company's favourite cartoon, and they use them often to reflect their own operations.

I have sent the same question (that I asked here) to my boss and the top Swede in the organisation. I wonder how much they value the reputation of the company.
I'll let you know.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Re: some more points

David Mullins said:

...
2. Claes, we're talking a Swedish owned company, so your impressions from a cultural viewpoint are also valid.
....

Ahaaaa... Now I'm really getting curious... Can't wait to hear more.

Incidentally, I and many others have noted an above average percentage of what seems like dyslexia among highly trained engineers here. The question is if this is what it looks like, or if they just didn't bother with the written word in school because they found the tech stuff more interesting?

Whatever the reason, the end result is an abundance of poorly written documents. Is it a local thing, or do the rest of you see it too?

/Claes