(Excerpt from email dated Thu, 18 Nov 1999, from Kathy Sanley to Jan Woody, Jeff Russell, Jim Hughes, John Patterson, Larry Nokes, Michele Sexton, and Darrell Masoner)
"Attached is a list of all Administration and Finance requests which are outstanding. They are sorted by director name.
You may find some with your name that have been requested by another department, but are directly related to your office in some way. Note that we have 4 associated department fields. The first one will usually be the requesting department.
Please assign a rating for each request with #1 being what you want done first, #2 second, etc. You can rate more than 1 request at each level. If it is determined that there are too many requests at a certain level, the requests will need to be reevaluated and reassigned."
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"We will then through all of the #1 and as many of the #2 as we can into the ‘immediately work on’ pot.
Don't worry about how long you may anticipate requests to take, or how hard or easy they are. I am hoping there will be a mix of these types of requests at each level.
** I am reserving the right for John Patterson to override any of the ratings you have put on them. I am also reserving the right to discuss any of your ratings, however I will make every effort to abide by them. **
You will note there is a divisional rating field. I am planning on meeting with you as a group on a regular basis and hash out divisional ratings when needed, i.e., there are 2 major projects for 2 different areas within the division - which one gets priority?
Also, some of the requests are very broad, such as "Forms on the web". You may want to start requesting specific forms and giving them a rating. That way we can start working them in with the other requests.
Please remember that all non-emergency requests we receive from your staff will be bounced back to you for your edification. It would be easiest if all requests come through you, but that isn't always possible. When you pass on requests, please include a rating number, keeping generally in mind the outstanding projects/ratings that you have. I will try to send out a listing like this on a weekly basis for you to look over and change/adjust/add to/whatever.
I'm sure this is all clear as mud, so if you have any questions, please call me. The sooner you can get your ratings back to me, the sooner we can get some organization into this process."