Folders, Folders, Folders

As a follow up to a previous post explaining the difficulty of Finding a Part, I must now describe the chaos of finding a file (Word Document, Excel Spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, etc.) on the network drives. While we have a Data Management System to keep track of official files that have gone through the rigorous release process, most of our files are simply stored in random folders on the network drives. These files include: any in-work data, company procedures, ‘how-to’ guides, email correspondences, clarifications, instructions, raw data, pictures, etc. Think of it as your ‘My Documents’ folder then multiply it by 100,000. We’re talking millions and millions of unorganized files and folders.

But why are they unorganized? Because that’s what happens when nobody takes charge to implement a good filing system with proper naming conventions and folder hierarchy. Instead, the IT guys created a network drive where everyone and anyone could create new folders and save their files wherever they wanted. When that network drive became full, they created another one, and another one, and another one until we had about a dozen of unorganized network drives hosting a collection of years and years of clutter.

As time passed, there were attempts to rein in the chaos, but none of them gained any traction. One Flunktional Manager tried to tackle the issue by creating a bunch of new folders and then directed everyone to ‘save their files to these proper folders from now on.’ But just like every action Flunktional Management undertakes, they never followed through. So after a few weeks, engineers went back to their old ways, saving files wherever they felt like saving them. In addition, the Flunktional Manager’s plan was ironically undermined by other Flunktional Managers who wanted to create their own system of folders.

A final contributor to all this clutter is the reluctance of Program Management to delete any of these files/folders in case they are somehow ‘crucial’ to the program. And I don’t blame them. I’m sure there is some really important stuff in those folders…out there… somewhere. But who has the time to siphon through all of that data? Well, that’s kinda what you have to do each time you want to find something. It makes Finding a Part seem like a walk in the park.

For example, say you are looking for a ‘How-To’ Guide on making corporate PowerPoint presentations. You not only don’t know where the file is saved or what it’s called, you don’t even know if such a document exists. It would make sense for this document to exist, but it might not. Nobody knows for sure unless they’ve found it. Where would you even start looking for this hypothetical document that you aren’t even sure exists? Maybe there is a ‘How-To’ folder somewhere, or maybe there are several ‘How-To’ folders, all hidden within other folders that you wouldn’t normally look in. No matter what, you have several hours of wheel spinning ahead of you.

Because I can spend hours searching and still not have a definitive answer on whether something exists or not, I throw rocks.