If it's so hard to remember the fifth of November, why not set an outlook reminder, rather than organise a bunch of people to set fire to something as a pyromaniac's aide memoir?

I suspect I've missed the point.

Or maybe I was just messing about for nearly comic effect. I wouldn't pretend that I've started this particular note very well.

Today has been its own shade of challenging. There are some great successes in the pipeline, but there are a lot of problems lurking around the sidelines either happening or threatening to happen. There just doesn't seem to be the time to keep them all at bay. So, for all the joy of seeing some things work, there's the struggle to keep up with everything else.

I got hooked a couple of times today in a couple of conversations about process and what's important. Importance number 1: have a process. Importance number 2: measure things. Importance number 3: resolve to improve things on an ongoing basis.

Anyway, it has been a day where the afternoon just disappeared and I'm left wondering if I'll ever catch up, or get ahead.

Never mind. Tonight was a night for fireworks, soup and sausages. That, along with excellent company, beats a day of work stress, hands down.

One final note. A really good system can be let down by bad staff - cue the flailing in Argos this lunchtime. Conversely, a bad system can be propped up by good staff... sometimes to their own detriment, since they'll fix stuff which should be fixed in the system, rather than by their efforts. If they don't complain, it can't be fixed.

Regular monitoring can help... provided you do something about it and monitor useful things.