- Why Organisation Matters
For many in the industry, when someone says Organisation, you think of DSM’s. Renowned for spreadsheets of information, meticulous note taking and enough stationary to open a shop. Organisation like this is also important in Show Control roles. For many, this starts with a spreadsheet of IP Addresses or the general network, and gets copied around, changed and expanded. Add to this the various notes that get scribbled down and passed to the programmer, designer and technicians and you can quickly end up in a mess.
To me, it’s important to build, maintain and adhere to a system of documentation that is flexible enough to cope with anything you may want to throw at it, but strict enough to prevent multiple versions of information being presented as the current version. This is one aspect I find quickly falls down with spreadsheets and something like Dropbox or OneDrive. It’s too easy for people to end up with their own copies, with multiple versions all being considered the latest or most accurate.
One topic that is often talked about by many that design and build this sorts of systems is the concept of a single ‘Source of Truth’. This is concept that the information should exist in a single location, and whatever is in that location is true. Anything outside of this source of truth is considered invalid. This sort of documentation is good for establishing a desired state for a system. This is exactly how it should be, and if it is different, it should be corrected back to this desired state.
In this series, I will introduce concepts and tools to help keep organised. Some of this may fit your needs perfectly, or they may be more that you need. You don’t need to use everything I present, or even any of it at all, but hopefully it will demonstrate ideas that can help. I am also by no means an expert, this is just a repository of lessons I have learnt as I have learnt whilst documenting simple and complex systems, and is an important starting place as modern control systems become increasingly complex.
Some of the topic’s that I will be covering include:
- Show & Project Folder structure to keep organised
- What to keep and what to loose when archiving a show
- Git
- User Account Management
- Password Management
- Software License Management
This is just a sneak peak at what is coming, with much more coming in other areas.
If you haven’t already, consider joining our newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest in Show Control, we have a daily and weekly option so you can be on the bleeding edge, or a little more reserved.
