DailyPost 909
DOCUMENTATION IN DEFENCE
The quality, nature, authenticity, usefulness, shelf life and finally the utility of the documentation depends on the frame of mind of the document creator; competence, capability, expertise, notwithstanding. This is the reason for different nature of documents for the same purpose by similar set of professionals. At the other end of the spectrum are professionals, who don’t want to document some parts at all, or communicate about some other parts / aspects in a very surreptitious manner, so that is does not catch the public / relevant gaze.
A scientist creates a document proposing the hypothesis and then the result of the experiments and the findings thereof. Purely research based scientific documents turn out to be objective. It can be called a positive document. But if it is for a approval of a research project, the hard facts of the project don’t mean much, what is important is the rationale or the logic. How will you be able to make the project sail through the approval process. This is positive defence.
Most of the documentation done today is not with a mental frame to get the best out of that document through projects, operations, deployment, execution but with a huge factoring in, of defending oneself; across organisations. This stunts the actual purpose of the documentation. As the work or the project unfolds or the law gets into operations, the problems start coming out in the open. Then the blame game starts and nobody gains in the process. Every word and syntax is ripped bare to prove oneself correct.
This is very true reflection of the present breed of professionals, who enjoy being called super professionals, but want everything sans responsibility and accountability. They might as well lecture on it. At the core of the documentation is to make money / profits / gains way beyond the efforts made and have a near perfect defence ready in case of failure or hiccups. Negative defence. They don’t know how to handle obstacles, bottlenecks and knotty issues. In a complex world of cut throat competition and quality deliverables, this is self defeating.
POSITIVITY & PROFESSIONALISM IN DOCUMENTATION CAN ONLY DELIVER RESULTS.
Sanjay Sahay