Wet signatures
It may be because it's Monday morning, but a bit of a bugbear of mine in terms of industry practices is the insistence on having a wet signature at all costs. In some markets, all project correspondence and documents have to be printed out and hand signed, occasionally as a legal requirement, but more commonly because that's how things have always been done. Talk about needlessly slowing things down!
This stamp of approval can be applied just as effectively, using the same process and with no loss of security, using an online project management collaboration system. When sending a piece of correspondence or a file using a collaboration tool, it is tracked on the system. Secure login ensures authenticity and authorization is done at the click of a button rather than having to go through the print, sign and send routine - speeding things up infinitely.
No doubt there are plenty more transactions like the wet signature that still lurk on projects here and there. Surely it's only a matter of time before they migrate to the digital world?
Labels: Good practice
