I was recently reminded of a practice we had at the consulting company I worked at (before my current employer)
We realized that by having a "Second Set of Eyes" look at every artifact that went to the client, we could increase the quality of communications with the client.
By
"Second Set of Eyes" I mean to say that we would have someone look at
emails, documents, artifacts, and deliverables before they went to the
client. One or more persons would create the "artifact" and someone else would review it. It was that simple. Yet, the payoffs were huge!
In
some organizations there are business controls that dictate that at least two people are involved in a transaction. This is especially true of financial transactions. For example: an invoice isn't created
and sent to the client by one person. Of course, this is to ensure that
financial improprieties are not carried out by one individual (or a
group of individuals), but it also does add a certain amount of quality
to what is sent to the client. These controls are certainly an attempt
to prevent financial misconduct, but as an additional benefit, having a
second person review an invoice (for example) might cause them to catch
that the amount is incorrect or an address is incorrect.
So,
we can see the benefits of a "Second Set of Eyes" on everything we send
to a client. This holds true even for just proof-reading: is the
English grammatically correct, did we use the correct references, are
the links good? But, it also takes on more value when a Subject Matter
Expert (SME) is involved and reviews the item with a deeper
understanding: Are we using the correct terminology, is the technical
explanation valid, is the quote reasonable and accurate, are the
formulas in the spreadsheet correct, are our assumptions stated and
valid?
Please comment below with
your thoughts about the value of a "Second Set of Eyes"
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