Duh!

Today I received a request to approve something at work. This isn't unusual as I'm the business owner of an IT application so any changes need to be approved by me.

Now normally when I'm approving changes there are two stages. An approval for the launch of the change and a later post launch approval to demonstrate that I'm happy with the changes.

This process is defined by the IT Policy Manual (ITPM to the IT crowd).

Usually when I'm approving something there's something to look at, a preview link that shows me the impact the change will have. To me this is logical: there's something to look at and something for the basis of an opinion.

Today, however, I was presented with something that wasn't logical. Along with an approval request I was advised that the change, the basis of the approval request, was invisible to me. There would be no preview link that I could look at to check anything. Additionally there would be nothing in the back end of the system that our agency could check.

So I was approving something that I couldn't check or verify. Does that seem silly to you? It seemed completely bonkers to me, a waste of everybody's time.

So along with my approval of thin air I questioned the whole process and unsurprisingly I was told that it was a stupid scenario but we had to go through it because it was in the ITPM. I don't respond well to this kind of scenario. I have a little devil sitting on my shoulder saying "It's not right. It's silly. Don't roll over. Policy shouldn't be written in stone. This needs changing." I am aware that the reality is "One doesn't mess with the ITPM." I know my little outburst will change nothing, but it makes me feel better.

But what if, next time, I just say "No!"?