Why Creating Standards for Your Shop is a Good Idea

I am here in my hotel room in Indianapolis as I am preparing for tomorrow’s presentations at the Indiana Green Expo and realized that I have not posted in a while. It has been so busy with the shop renovation and preparing for the next couple of months worth of presentations and trade shows that I haven’t taken the time. So I figured I would talk about what I have added to my presentations this year and that is “Shop Standards”.

Last year I was on a consulting trip to one of the courses I do work for every year and was introduced to a document that they put together for the golf course. It was golf course standards that were very comprehensive. They talked about heights of cut during what times of the season in all areas and a multitude of other items really specific and thorough. It was also signed off on by their Greens Committee. So it was a document that set the expectations that the Greens Committee and golf course staff agreed on. The one thing I realized when reading over the document was that one thing was missing and that was where is the shop standards in all of this? One of my recommendations on that trip was to start putting those together.

The other thing I realized is that hey I am recommending that they create these “Shop Standards” however I don’t have any myself. So last month I began putting ours together. During the process I realized “why have I not done this from the start of my career”? When you are writing down how maintenance is to be performed and what tolerances are acceptable and what checks are to be gone through on all equipment you start to realize how much easier the job becomes when everyone understands what is to be done. I mean can you imagine not having to guess what the expectations are or realize that your expectations differ from others? This document helps get everyone from the management team to the staff performing the duties all on the same page. No more guessing, no more “well I thought that was good enough”, its clear and it’s concise.

I believe putting documents like these together have a lot of value in communicating with your team and everyone understanding what the plan is.