The Associates Handbook

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ErrorFree

Systems and methods to avoid mistakes in your work.

Take a break before you review

Before reviewing, take a break, and then sit down to review with some distance. After four hours inside a file you have stopped reading it and started remembering it. Your brain fills in what should be there rather than reporting what is there, which is why re-reading the same

Lock your screen

Windows key plus L. Every time you stand up. No exceptions. Two reasons, one serious and one funny. The serious one: you work with confidential client data, often in client offices, often in open spaces. An unlocked laptop is a compliance incident waiting for someone to walk past it. In

Version everything, and never write “final”

A naming convention takes one minute to adopt and saves you the afternoon three weeks from now. Agree a convention with your team and use it on every file without exception. Something like: YYYYMMDD_ModelName_vXX_initials.xlsx Then mark what actually left the building. A file that was sent

Build in a one-minute send delay

The three levels of errors, and the three layers that catch them

A complete system for producing clean work. Three kinds of mistake, three lines of defence, and the habits that make both run without thinking about them. Errors creep into everything: PowerPoint, spreadsheets, meetings, the handover between case teams, a late-night version mix-up, or simply the hour when you

Be correct first, then be correct fast

It feels like a trade-off in your first months. It is a sequence, it only runs in one direction, and getting the order wrong will cost you a year. Clients pay somewhere between hundreds and thousands per consultant per day. A normal project runs into the millions. For that