IAATR - “It’s All About The Requirements”
We’ve all seen this one…
And we find it amusing maybe because it’s sometimes so true that it can be painful?
Working in environmental software that had to generate reports for most of my career has given me a visceral understanding of this.
But a story I read on a plane somewhere really connected these dots for me.
A travel writer was ranking hotels. His criteria were 1) restaurant in the hotel 2) bar in the hotel 3) newspaper delivered to his door in the morning and 4) pay per view movies. All 4 of these are a 0 out of 10 requirement in my book. Actually, they were negative factors since they typically negated the things I wanted like free coffee, breakfast, and lots of cable channels..
For me, it was 1) free internet 2) coffee maker in the room 3) free breakfast downstairs in the morning and 4) free cable TV channels, including public television, HGTV and Food Network. Not necessarily in that order, although free internet would definitely have been #1.
We were miles apart. If we had been talking, we would have thought we were using the same language and saying the same things, and would not even have been close.
Here are my IAATR’s for Visual Chemical Safety:
1) They are understandable to someone who doesn’t speak your language as their native language
2) They are understandable to someone who doesn’t read
3) The worker knows how to use the material
4) They are actionable-the worker knows what to do to protect themself after reviewing
5) They can be templatized to group similar things together and distinguish difference
6) They can be automated
7) Implementation can be phased; the Visual Chemical Safety picture first, of hazards and protection, with spill response, waste disposal, and rolling the information into an ap as a later stage
Community Outreach: Are these steps consistent with the “picture” in you mind? if not, how is yours different?
More next time…
