When I joined the State, we processed paperwork manually.
- Vendor mails Invoice to Accounting in Carson City
- Accounting interdepartmental mails invoice to Public Works
- Public Works admin mails invoice down to Las Vegas
- Project Manager mails signed invoice up to Public Works in Carson City
- Deputy Administrator mails signed invoice across the street to Accounting.
- Accounting mails Check to Vendor.
Physical paper shuffled across our state 6 (SIX!) times to pay a simple invoice.
Fortunately, a Management Analyst joined the State the same day that I started. One of his goals was to implement digital signatures. I eagerly volunteered.
Ten months later, we finally contracted with a vendor and it took another half year of brainstorming and pushing management before we were approved to process invoices on Adobe Sign.
The vendor emails their invoice to the PM and it takes five minutes to send it out for approvals and payment.
A couple months later, COVID happened.
We were fortunate to have gotten past the fear of digital approvals before the pandemic hit. So the calamity actually accelerated the adoption of digital signatures for rest of our documents.
I also discovered that Adobe Sign can automate much of the process — a godsend for more complicated agreements which consistently go to the same individuals.
Being an evangelist for of this initiative has been my most tangible accomplishment within the State.
Hopefully I’ll discover other awesome process improvements to share over my next two decades with the State. But sometimes it’s just lucky to be new at the right time!
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On net, this digital process is an absolute winner for the State and our partners. However, I must note that has resulted in a perverse result where a PM spends more time processing paperwork than in the old days. The cloud stole tasks from administrative assistants and put it on licensed engineers and architects.
The next step would be to the processes so the licensed professionals can return their focus on their professional expertise. Cal Newport discusses this issue in his book “A World Without Email”, but the solution is still murky in my vision.
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PS: You can “add” email addresses in Google with a “+” (plus sign). If your gmail is “sample@gmail.com” then you can create a limitless sub-email addresses like “sample+vendor@gmail.com” and “sample+chief@gmail.com”… All those emails will just land in your main gmail inbox. It’s an invaluable hack to testing all sorts of digital systems.
16 Apr 2023