A practical checklist for internal tools

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. Run through this the next time internal tools comes up.

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

The checklist

• The spreadsheet everyone fears is a specification
• Internal tools rarely need to be beautiful, but they must be reliable
• Time saved compounds every single week
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

Why it matters

The spreadsheet everyone fears is a specification. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

The short version

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about internal tools before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Internal tools rarely need to be beautiful, but they must be reliable — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.