Documentation is Unnecessary Until You Need It

If you have a fire in your server room, your insurance pays out. Insurance is expensive, but a necessary part of your risk management strategy. For many risks, there is a way to get almost free insurance. Yet few people take it. I am talking about documentation.

A chocolate factory in Belgium didn’t follow its own processes and did not document its production. When kids started falling sick with salmonella all over Europe, suspicion fell on the Kinder egg factory in Arlon. The authorities asked for the production documentation. Because the factory couldn’t provide it, the whole plant was shut down. If they had had documentation, they would have been insured against this risk. They could have shut down just one production line instead of the whole plant.

So the reason you might not be able to get chocolate eggs this Easter is bad documentation.

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