Just for the record - How good record keeping can be your best friend

At a wedding recently, I saw so many people having to introduce themselves to someone they realised they had met many times before. Was I one of these people?  Maybe. Do my family members have really bad memories?  Let’s not get into that now. Let’s just say that it got me thinking about how much I wish my brain had a really reliable database. 

No, we are not about to try and sell you database software!  We just know that good record keeping when we interact with stakeholders is really important because no matter how many times you tell yourself that you will remember a conversation, or that a particular resident works night shift so you shouldn’t call them during the day, our memory can let us down.  Even at weddings! Even with people you are related to!  No judgment.

Good record keeping can be your best friend – particularly if you have a lot of stakeholders and you are not the only one who will be interacting with them over a long project. Reviewing project sentiment over time can be a useful tool to see if you are building trust, and tracking the types of interactions you have can illustrate to your project team that there has been a reduction in noise complaints or an increase in enquiries about traffic.

There are obvious privacy requirements when maintaining your database – for example, not listing some personal information.  Just like with your family, you can mentally note that your weird uncle seems to have multiple girlfriends, but you wouldn’t add that into a database.

Record keeping for some organisations and projects can also be a legal and regulatory requirement, so good to check what you need to do as well as what is leading practice.