That's not office standard!!!

If only I had a dollar for every time I've heard that phrase, I'd be writing this from my private island in the Ligurian Sea.  You know what I'm talking about too.  There's always that one person in the office hell bent on "standards" and how the drawings should look.  Maybe it's even you?  

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making my drawings legible and uniform.  As architects, we even want them to look nice and pretty.  But have you ever seen the elusive "standards manual"?  Is this something that was created when the firm began back in 1924?  Show me the manual!!  I'll follow it by all means but most of times it's either a guessing game or tales told through the ages from one generation to the other.  Who has the non-billable time to print, hole punch, and insert a bunch of pages into an old unused products binder?

Well here we have it - new and improved for the 21st century.  Better than a paper bound manual is a PDF file ready and available on your file server.  This way, you can bookmark pages and change them out as methods, software, and lead designers change.  These "one-sheets" as i call them should be just that.  One single page giving critical information on a single topic.  Keep it simple and include what should be done and why.  This reinforces to users what they should be doing and the dire consequences if they do not.  Don't include click by click instructions on how.  There's always more than one way to accomplish a task, so don't spend time and space on your page with that.

Please do me one last favor - call it Best Practices.  It is a living breathing entity after all and should always be evolving.  Standards sounds so set in stone as though you just blew the dust off the cover.  Try it out - I think you just might like it!