Posted by Rakesh Shukla on Fri, May 01, 2009 @ 11:34 AM
My boys won the New England Super Regional AAU Tournament this past weekend. Even though it's only a 12-year-old basketball tournament, it's a major accomplishment.
When you consider that we have been practicing together for only a month and soundly defeated several teams who have been playing together for years (including a team that placed 5th at Nationals last year), the significance of this accomplishment is only magnified.
What shocked me more than winning, though, was the dirty play against my boys in the Final Four game ... the trash-talking profanity was non-stop and extremely vulgar ....... chippy guards were kicking my son in the back of the knees and tripping him whenever the referees turned their heads ....and ... you won't believe this one ... another one of my kids was punched in the stomach when the refs were not looking.
This was not basketball. It was violence meant to intimidate my boys. But my boys played through it and showed some real mental & physical toughness.
The other disburbing aspect of winning was the lack of graciousness from my fellow coaches ... many were downright jealous. "How dare a a newly-formed suburban team with an unknown coach win the Division 1 Super Regional Championship???"
In fact, one of the other coaches/teams was so envious, that an informal complaint was filed that I was cheating! He claimed that my kids were too old.
Thank goodness I had all my birth certificates and other paperwork in meticulous order. I had collected and prepared everything in a neatly organized binder weeks ago whereas most other teams were scrambling at the last moment with scraps of paper here and scraps of paper there.
Which brings me to my point about disputes and protests ...
... WHOEVER HAS THE BEST DOCUMENTATION WINS.
Think about what this means for AP disputes. If all information, including all related documents and audit trails is available online, not only will there be fewer disputes but the disputes that do happen will get resolved more quickly.
Some studies have shown that AP can spend up to 20-25% of their time dealing with supplier disputes and inquiries. What a productivity drain! Having all documentation online will solve this problem quickly.
I learned many things this past weekend -- maintaining the best documentation possible to help resolve disputes in your favor was one of the biggest lessons learned.
-Rakesh Shukla
Posted by Steve Wilcox on Tue, Feb 10, 2009 @ 03:17 PM
In my last blog entry, I explored the importance of segregating AP duties.
Today, I will present a fascinating case study of AP Fraud that highlights the risks of poor AP internal controls.
This is a true story.
Our tale concerns a husband-wife team who colluded with an outside vendor to fleece their company of at least $2 million over a seven-year period. The target of this sustained fraud was the well-respected newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, where poor internal controls contributed mightily to the scandal they were, to their considerable embarrassment, obliged to report in their own pages.
The Profile of an AP Fraudster
The mastermind of the scheme was a Mr. Johnson, a white male and 22-year employee of the newspaper with an unblemished record. Believe it or not, this is the typical profile of an AP Fraudster.
It was Mr. Johnson's good fortune to serve as a purchasing manager who also had authority to both receive goods and services and approve invoices for the same. The invoices would naturally flow through the AP department, where Mr. Johnson's wife happened to work. All the Johnsons needed to complete a seamless scam was a cooperative and unscrupulous vendor. Mr. Johnson cultivated a friendship with a favorite supplier until they became close enough that he could propose his ploy: for every two shipments you send me, invoice The Observer for three, and we'll split the payment for the phantom shipment!
Too Many Hats for One Head
The breakdowns in internal controls that allowed this arrangement to prosper over a 7-year period are manifold. Consolidating so many responsibilities in the hands of even the most trusted of employees is the first bright-red flag. A married couple with entangled duties connected with AP is another red flare. Significant budget variances, on the order of $50,000 of bogus charges per month per department, were overlooked as boom times created a lax atmosphere that tolerated such large discrepancies. Poor inventory controls allowed non-existent shipments to be processed and paid for. To top it all off, nobody involved was bonded and the company wasn't insured against such a loss.
NASCAR Insider?!? Where was the Common Sense?
While there is no question that better systems and procedures might have excised this cancerous scheme, simply bringing common sense to bear would have at least curtailed the loss. During the seven years that the Johnsons were siphoning off a substantial chunk of The Observer's revenue, their lifestyle took a dramatic turn for the better. They sold their old home, moved into a new lakefront mansion in an exclusive neighborhood, added a swanky boat, traveled like pashas and stockpiled fancy automobiles. Indeed, not only did Johnson flaunt his new-found wealth, he abandoned discretion entirely by incessantly insinuating himself into the picture - literally - in the very high profile world of NASCAR. Every week, it seemed, he would be photographed bear-hugging the winner at the victory celebration, an awesome display of insider status in the region's most revered sport.
Meanwhile, his demeanor around the office was quite the opposite. Formerly out-going and hands-on, Johnson retreated into his office where he spent most of each day behind a closed door and drawn blinds.
How could anyone, indeed everyone, have failed to notice? The answer is that of course people noticed, but they didn't trust their intuition enough to call Johnson's bluff. All Johnson had to do to deflect curiosity over the course of the better part of a decade was claim an aunt died and left him an inheritance. Naturally, once the fraud was unmasked, the aunt was discovered to be as imaginary as the stream of phantom shipments Johnson authorized and his wife paid for.
AP Internal Control Breakdowns
Clearly, a woeful failure to segregate duties was at the heart of this calamity. Had Johnson not had the power to approve his own actions, this fraud might have been prevented altogether. Improved transparency and more disciplined approval framework would also, at the very least, make a fraud such as Johnson's more difficult to launch and impossible to sustain.
While Mr. and Mrs. Johnson eventually received their comeuppance - curiously, The Observer did not take immediate legal action upon their exposure - the newspaper nonetheless took a substantial hit, both in terms of financial loss and tarnished reputation. Nor were the perps the only people to suffer: managers who presided over the slipshod operations were sacked, steering lives and careers off track. The real tragedy of this tale is that if today's AP automation software and associated best business practices had been in place at The Observer, this entire fraud, and all the damage that ensued, would never have happened in the first place.
-Rakesh Shukla
@rakesh170
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Posted by Steve Wilcox on Fri, Feb 06, 2009 @ 03:27 PM
Question: What do the following situations all have in common?
- A policeman ticketing a Dunkin' Donuts truck driver ...
- A doctor prescribing medicine from a pharmaceutical company in which he owns stock ...
- A politician accepting contributions from a special interest group ...
- A procurement manager being wined and dined by vendors ...
- A hungry wolf guarding the chicken coop ...
- A judge sentencing a family member ...
- Coaching your own son or daughter on a travel team ...
Answer: In each situation, there is a conflict of interest.
A conflict of interest is a situation where someone (such as a doctor,politician, procurement specialist, police officer, judge, coach, wolf etc.) has a personal interest or motivation that might compromise the reliability and integrity of bigger obligations.
In many cases - especially where money is involved - a conflict of interest may tempt someone to break the law. Nowhere is this truer than in Accounts Payable.
In AP, there are a lot of conflicting duties which should always be segregated. Segregating AP duties is one of the most important internal controls in finance. For example, the person entering the invoice should not approve the invoice for obvious reasons. Similarly, the person who sets up a vendor should not enter the invoice into the ERP system. There are many examples in AP where duties should be segregated. The problem is that most finance departments constantly have pressure to do more with less. But to follow segregation of duties to the letter, you need enough staff which isn't always a luxury - especially in these economic conditions.
But wait!
Haven't ERP systems addressed segregated duties through a security framework which governs the acceptable use for each authorized user?
Aren't roles and responsibilities managed so that, for example, an entry-level accounts payable clerk can access modules only related to her specific job function while the CFO can access any module in the system?
Well ... yes ... but the problem of trying to maintain segregated duties using this classification approach is that these configurations are expensive to design and deploy. As employees are promoted, reassigned, or terminated, organizations must continually update their ERP systems with everyone's correct authorization level including consultants, contractors and business partners. Supporting and maintaining the classifications and configurations is a resource intensive job.
Furthermore, most organizations struggle with their initial ERP setup -- millions are spent in projects that can take up to 3 or more years. Unfortunately, the setup of these segregated classifications is often the last phase of the project and does not receive the attention it requires especially if the project is over budget or behind schedule - which is more common than not.
With AP automation that includes a robust workflow engine, you should have complete end-to-end AP process visibility as the invoice transitions from one step to the next ... the AP system should track all changes maintaining a comprehensive audit trail of what was performed and by whom for all prior steps so potential conflicts can automatically be caught at the transaction-level.
Using this approach, limited headcount can still allow for segregated duties since segregation can be enforced at the transaction level instead of the job role level. Employees can still be cross trained and allowed to perform multiple functions as long as they don't perform conflicting duties on the same transaction. For example, an AP Specialist could both enter invoices and also setup suppliers as long as there is no conflict on each and every transaction.
This transaction-level segregation can be enforced by the workflow software which allows you to move away from restrictive job role controls ... rather than limiting what functions employees can carry out as part of their jobs, this approach allows enterprises to boost productivity while mitigating the business risks.
One last point here ... this approach requires less overhead since segregation rules are defined once at the process level as opposed to the constant overhead of ERP administration.
-Rakesh Shukla
@rakesh170
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Posted by Steve Wilcox on Thu, Dec 04, 2008 @ 12:11 PM
Check out this amazing chart of the 13 week T-Bill Treasury rate since 1960:
3 month T-bills at ZERO? Are you kidding me???
The yields are at never before imagined levels ... all-time record lows across the entire yield curve:
... 2-year notes at almost a jaw-dropping 3/4%
... 5-year notes at an amazingly low 1.5%
... willing to lock up your money for 30-years at a miniscule 3.0%?
At these yields, you are basically donating your money to the Treasury rather than lending it. But what if you could earn 37% in this low interest environment?
How?
By taking your AP invoice discounts.
If your vendor offers you a discount of 2% if you pay within 10 days (2/10 net 30), you'd save $2 on a $100 order ... if you simply pay 20 days earlier than usual.
To figure out how this translates into an annual interest rate, use this formula:
Discounted amount /(Discounted price/100) X 360/N =
Effective annual interest rate
where 360 = days in the fiscal year, and N = the number of days between the discount date and the final payment deadline.
So, in the "2/10 Net 30" case, 2/(98/100) X 360/20 = 36.7%.
37%!!!! In an economic climate where t-bills are earning 0.05%, 37% seems like a no-brainer.
Even if the discount terms are slightly different, the yields will blow away anything you can safely earn in the bank. For reference, here's a list of effective annual interest rates for some common discount terms, as calculated by the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers:
- 1/10 net 30 = 18.2%
- 1/10 net 45 = 10.4%
- 1/10 net 60 = 7.3%
- 2/10 net 30 = 36.7%
- 2/10 net 60 = 14.7%
- 2/20 net 90 = 10.5%
- 3/10 net 30 = 55.7%
- 3/10 net 60 = 22.3%
- 3/20 net 90 = 15.9%
Now, none of this is possible if your AP cycle times are too long or if you don't have visibility into AP discounts that are coming due ... common problems with paper-based AP processes.
This is where a robust AP Automation solution that tracks upcoming discounts can provide some real value. By shortening invoice processing cycle times and knowing which discounts are about to be lost if invoices aren't paid promptly, you can take those negotiated discounts and save your company a lot of money.
Now, there is one twist to consider -- the need to increase working capital. AP can increase working capital by stretching payment terms and foregoing the discount. In general, it's difficult to justify not grabbing that 37% annual discount yield but there are some working capital tradeoffs. I will have more to say on this topic in my next blog entry.
-Rakesh Shukla
@rakesh170
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Posted by Steve Wilcox on Fri, Aug 01, 2008 @ 02:49 PM
head·ache Pronunciation[hed-eyk]
-noun
1. a pain located in the head, as over the eyes, at the temples, or at the base of the skull.
2. an annoying or bothersome person, situation, activity, etc.
What is THE biggest AP headache?
To answer that question, we recently conducted a very interesting survey of over 1000 finance professionals - mostly AP professionals, AP managers & supervisors but also some controllers, auditors and finance VPs. The typical company profile was an organization with >$250M in revenue and >2500 invoices per month. We asked a very simple question:
What are your top 3 AP headaches?
The results were fascinating! Here they are:
Let me highlight (what I thought were) some surprising results:
- I found it very interesting that reducing costs was only 5th. With the pressures of globalization and outsourcing, I expected a much higher response than 30%. CFOs are definitely thinking about reducing costs (see my previous blog entry). There seems to be a bit of disconnect between what's keeping CFOs up at night and what's keeping AP Managers from a good night's rest.
- Dealing with SOX is still a top 3 headache despite SOX being around for over 6 years now. In fact, compliance costs continue to rise for the average company according to The Hackett Group.
- Constantly being interrupted ranked #2. I guess this is understandable since some studies show that up to 30% of an AP Specialist's time is spent fielding vendor inquiries!
As you can see the #1 Headache was too much time wasted chasing paper. Despite two decades of "paperless office" predictions, numerous studies show that over 80% of invoices are still paper-based!
-Rakesh Shukla
Posted by Rakesh Shukla on Mon, Jul 07, 2008 @ 11:10 AM
This summer, I volunteered to be a camp counselor/coach at a basketball overnight camp for inner city kids.
After 5 days and 4 nights with wakeup calls at 7:00am and "lights out" at 11pm, I was completely and utterly exhausted. My "team" consisted of 10 fifth and sixth graders -- each one was a good kid but a few had very little respect for authority, most had very short attention spans and all of them had extraordinary excuse-making abilities.
(In hindsight) there were several amusing incidents. One of my kids (let's call him D) was a chronic liar. One morning during our dribbling drills, for no apparent reason, D smacked a teammate on the head. Almost everyone saw him do it.
"Why the heck did you hit Mark?" I asked as Mark was rubbing his head and crying.
D threw up his arms in disbelief. "What?!? Why do I get blamed for everything! Coach, I didn't do anything. I swear."
No number of pushups could extract even a half-hearted apology from D. Instead, D concocted one of the best excuses I have ever heard - "Coach, I could tell that Mark was thinking of hitting me first so I HAD to defend myself." Now, even with my patience running very thin, I had to admire the creativity of that excuse.
I had another kid (let's call him O) who came to this 5 day overnight camp with ONE pair of shorts and ONE pair of underwear.
O's "dirty laundry" solution?
Steal other campers' shorts and skivvies, of course! It was hard not to chuckle dealing with the "daily undie theft" but the sad part was that Oliver really didn't understand that "borrowing without permission" was wrong.
This is how my week went - it was truly an exercise in patience as the kids always had some excuse for their (mis)behavior. Yes, we actually played some basketball, learned some things and had some fun -- but managing and supervising these kids was an all-consuming task from the moment I woke up to the moment I put my head down on my pillow. A co-worker here at 170 Systems joked that my experience with these kids sounded similar to babysitting invoice approvals from business managers in the field. It's actually a pretty good analogy. How much time do AP Professionals waste chasing down approvals? How many paper invoices have really been "lost?" How many lame excuses can field approvers fabricate for procrastinating on approvals?
We all know that accurate approvals and authorizations are a critical internal control. A robust approval process should ensure that accurate approvals are obtained in a timely manner with accountable audit trails that are tracked in real-time. From a bottom-line perspective, late approvals also cost money in missed discounts, late fees and productivity-sapping "where's my payment" inquiries.
To minimize the amount of time you have to spend babysitting approvals, you HAVE to do approvals online. If you are still signing things on pieces of paper, making copies, mailing stuff, matching with signature books, etc. ... then a significant part of each AP Staffer's day will be wasted babysitting approvals and enduring excuses. To free yourself from approval "daycare," the approval process must be systematic, on-line and have full security controls.
Let me ask you this: How many times have invoices been paid late because of tardy approvals and then AP gets the blame! Automating AP through technologies such as workflow and imaging can encourage timely approvals with automated routing based on configurable business rules for appropriate spending levels, e-mail reminders and escalations. With escalations, if you receive an invoice and ignore it, you will get a reminder. If you ignore that reminder you may get a second reminder. Finally, if you procrastinate too long on the approval, the approval will automatically be escalated to your boss. It usually takes one invoice to be escalated once and then all of a sudden you have timely approvals. It's amazing to witness this change in behavior when approvers realize the process is systematic, controlled and tracked such that there are ramifications if approvals are not carried out in a timely fashion. With this type of visibility into the approval process, not even D could come up with an excuse!
So, if you have approvers named D and O who always have a "dog ate my invoice" excuse for late approvals and don't understand that overdue approvals are wrong and cost the company money, consider the benefits of automating the approval process.
-Rakesh
P.S. So what are the best excuses you have heard from delinquent approvers? Please let us know by posting a comment.
Posted by Steve Wilcox on Fri, Jun 20, 2008 @ 10:42 AM
" At the beginning of the season, I told the team it was all about defense. If we play great defense we're going to win the world championship."
- Doc Rivers
As a youth basketball coach, the most frustrating skill to teach kids is how to play defense. Actually, that's not quite correct - the most frustrating skill to teach is wanting to play defense. Afterall, defense is not as "fun" as offense and playing good defense makes you tired. This was exactly my son's attitude ... until this season. Now he loves playing defense.
What changed?
Kevin Garnett came to the Celtics. Tom Thibodeau was hired as the Defensive Assistant Coach. The whole team bought into playing hard defense. Who knew Paul Pierce could play such great defense??? The Celtics transformed into a defensive machine.
"I want to play defense like KG!" I overheard my son telling a teammate at practice the other night . Ahhh, sweet music to my basketball junkie ears -- talk about making a youth basketball coach's job easy! I tried to preach defense till I was blue in the face. The kids just didn't care ... until this magical Celtics season where defense has been THE focal point.
With the crowd deliriously chanting, "DEE-FENSE, DEE-FENSE, DEE-FENSE!," The Celtics won their 17th NBA championship last night. With their maniacal, suffocating team defense, the poor Lakers didn't stand a chance.
In the business world, great defense is about managing risk with strong internal controls. My high school basketball coach always used to say that great offense starts with great defense. Similarly, strong internal controls (i.e. defense) optimizes business performance (i.e. offense). Here's another way to think about it -- controls are like car brakes. Cars have brakes so that they can go faster. If a sports car didn't have brakes, how fast could it really go? Strong internal controls, like brakes, allows a business to put the foot on the accelerator and compete aggressively.
The issue, of course, is that compliance costs, on average, have added $200K per billion in revenue to the cost of finance since SOX ... unless you are a world class company in which case, finance costs continue to go down as a percentage of revenue (Hackett Book of Numbers Insight, Dec. 2007)
So what are these world class companies doing to strengthen controls while keeping a lid on control costs? 4 things, they are:
- Centralizing and simplifying processes: Shared services is the best way to centralize processes and reduce costs.
- Leveraging technology: Leading companies leverage technology to have fewer ERP systems and minimal duplication of data. For example, having a single vendor master file and a single chart of accounts (which is easy if you have a single ERP system) allows you to have a single source of the truth which is critical for financial data.
- Automating controls: Average companies also perform a LOT more manual control activities than leading companies which means they are operating with an unnecessary level of risk.
- Using more preventative controls: Leading companies have more preventative controls. Of course an environment where deficiencies are prevented in the first place is more desirable and much less expensive than having to detect problems after the fact.
All of these points are especially true in Accounts Payable. World-class AP organizations have strong internal controls that don't increase operating costs and don't sacrifice service levels. If you believe the experts, this is only possible through automated, preventative controls that leverage technology -- automated routing of approvals, real-time enforcement of segregated duties at the transaction level, comprehensive audit trails that track ALL invoice touches, etc.
Just like great defense wins championships, strong internal controls enable world-class performance.
The final score last night was:
131-92.
No, that's not a typo. That score truly exemplifies that great DEE-FENSE leads to great offense.
-Rakesh
P.S. If you want to see an example of probably the worst defense in the history of professional basketball, check out this clip from Game 4 of the NBA finals. Heck, most 11 year olds play better defense than Laker guard Sasha Vujacic does here!
Posted by Steve Wilcox on Wed, Jun 11, 2008 @ 10:19 AM
Recently, I attended a Celtics game with my family after a loooong time. I hadn't been to a Celtics game since my college days in the mid 80s during Larry Bird's heydays. What a difference a few decades make! I was really struck by how much things have changed.
Back then, an imminent Celtics victory was heralded by huge plumes of cigar smoke. The man doing the pillowed puffing was, of course, the late Red Auerbach. Today, as the Celtics start to wrap up a game, the new virtual victory cigar is a Jumbotron vintage video from American Bandstand which features a bearded dancer dude wearing a tight "Gino" t-shirt and bell-bottoms with a very big flare. Watching him "shake, shake, shake his booty" is an absolute hoot as you can see in this YouTube Video:
The total entertainment product has also changed ... quite dramatically. In the "old days," it was only about basketball without any other distractions. For example, back when Russell, Havliceck and Bird were winning championships, there were absolutely no mascots or cheerleaders. Mascots and cheerleaders at a Celtics game? Unthinkable!
My, how things have changed!
Today, LUCKY the leprechaun is the Celtics mischievous mascot and, I must admit, he is quite entertaining -- my kids especially love him.
As for cheerleaders, the Celtics were one of the last teams to have dancers and they are all knockouts (but none of them are as attractive as my dear wife, in case she reads this). And, yes, they can really dance (but not one is as mesmerizing as my dear wife, in case she reads this).
Now that I have secured my spousal spot in the dog house let me get to my point about Accounts Payable departments. If the stodgy Celtics of old can adapt and change, why can't AP? Going to a Celtics game is a totally different experience from the old Boston Garden days but unlike the Celtics, many AP departments have NOT changed one iota since the last Celtics championship 22 years ago in 1986.
In 1986, most AP departments were entirely paper-based.
In 2008, recent reports by The Hackett Group and Aberdeen show that most AP departments are still entirely paper-based...only one third of all enterprises have a significant level of automation in place! We see this all the time when talking to prospects. One of my colleagues, Larry Concannon, recently gave a presentation at the RECAP AP show. When he asked the audience what they were currently doing to process invoices, most just looked embarrassed. Why? More than a few sheepishly admitted they were still mired in manual, paper processes and doing things more or less the same way as 20 years ago.
I know I am biased but plenty of benchmark and survey data shows that high levels of automation can produce significant benefits including reduced costs, strengthened controls and improved service levels.
Just like the entertainment experience of a Celtics game has changed over the past 20 years, the "AP experience" can be dramatically changed for the better through modern automation building blocks such as e-Invoicing, Imaging & OCR, Workflow, Supplier Portals, etc. Something for you to consider as Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, LUCKY, the dancers, and Gino "Disco Fever" lead the Celtics to (hopefully) their 17th championship this year.
-Rakesh
Posted by Rakesh Shukla on Wed, Apr 16, 2008 @ 11:36 AM
What, talk of peace? I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee
Tybalt (to Romeo)
Romeo & Juliet, I, i
Watching a Grade 5 production of Romeo and Juliet is endearing to the say the least. As far as I can tell, my son's classmates still have very little interest in the opposite sex. Unlike the girls who all want the role of Juliet, the love scenes make all the boys cringe.
"Poor Luke," laments my son about his best friend, "he has to play Romeo and act out ... (he is having trouble finishing the sentence) ... act out .. (he finally blurts out the "L" word) ... love. Blech! It's sooo embarrassing."
It is almost cruel to make 10 and 11 year old boys perform this Shakespeare classic. On the other hand, the feuding scenes between the Montagues and Capulets, are right up the boys' alley!
You are a saucy boy!
Capulet (to Tybalt)
Romeo & Juliet, I, v
My son played Tybalt Capulet, Juliet's hot-headed cousin who is always looking to fight a cursed Montague - especially that Romeo rogue! He thrived in this saucy-boy role of shoving, fighting, blood and death duels.
The ancient grudge of the Montagues vs. the Capulets reminds me of another ancient grudge: Accounts Payable vs. Procurement.
When invoices don't get paid on time, procurement points the finger at AP. AP, in turn, points the finger at procurement blaming them for taking too long to resolve price holds in the first place!
When suppliers complain about payment errors, procurement gets infuriated at AP for jeopardizing supplier relationships that have been formed over many years and negotiations. AP, in turn, is enraged that the supplier Invoice, the PO generated by Purchasing and the contract terms Purchasing negotiated are not even close to being in sync. How is AP supposed to make a "correct" payment when the PO, Invoice and Contract Terms are all different!
Romeo, the love I bear for thee can afford no better term than this... thou art a villain.
Tybalt
Romeo & Juliet
I have seen very few organizations where AP loves Purchasing or Purchasing loves AP. More typically, they despise each other.
So what is the solution? Some argue that since Purchasing is more "strategic," AP should report to Purchasing. The Hackett Group, in fact, considers an end-to-end purchase-to-pay (P2P) function under common management as an accepted best practice.
Although management and reporting structures may solve some of the feuding issues, I think enabling real-time visibility into the AP process stops the unproductive finger-pointing in its tracks. For example, if you have an AP imaging and workflow automation solution that can audit who, when, how and where for each invoice at each step of the process and then report on those metrics, it increases accountability rather dramatically ... and thus virtually eliminates the bickering and unproductive fighting.
BENVOLIO: What, art thou hurt?
MERCUTIO: Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
MERCUTIO: A plague o' both your houses,
They have made worms' meat of me.
Romeo & Juliet, III, i
-Rakesh