Do your spring cleaning, turn the soil, check your wellness, and give your technology a stress test

By Art Gillis

OK, folks, I'm not your mother, gardener, doctor or your conscience. It's just that spring is a great time to wake up and enjoy your life more. "Waking up" means you have to do tasks you hate to perform. And "enjoying your life more" means you'll be glad you did it. For me, the tough one is spring cleaning at the office, but I do it because I get a huge return for my effort. I must say it a dozen times. "Damn, so this is where I put it." Here's one example. Years ago, I created a scorecard so bankers could test their own systems. On the left side of the matrix I listed the most popular deficiencies I have uncovered during my consulting assignments. Because I don't harp on the petty ones, my list has only 46 items on it. Then I provide four grades for assessment - great, not bad, weak, and N/A. Yes, in the real world, some banks don't do car loans, or mortgages, or Internet banking, so N/A is appropriate. And I don't want people to get bogged down with digital assessments because this is a friendly test of reasonableness. "Is our cash management system a 78 or a 76?" It's not worth arguing about it -- "weak" is a good enough detector. At the end of this exercise, it's the "weak" column that spooks me. Too many check marks means it's time for repairs. And summer is usually the best time to do conversions, unless you're in the vacation regions.