Why are PDSs so damn hard?!
/OK, so everyone hates PDSs. But really, why is that? They are just documents right? So why is it that PDS rolls are described as ‘soul destroying’.
In my experience, there are several reasons. So you might fix one issue, but then it’s still awful. Which can easily lead you to give up and just accept that PDS rolls are terrible and there’s no getting around it.
But don’t give up just yet! Here are the six main issues, and importantly, what you can do about them.
No clear owner
Hidden costs
Not my day job
Time pressure
No upside and no party
Bad behaviour from stakeholders (not at YOUR shop I’m sure!!)
Let's get into them, starting with...
1 – Ownership
Let’s start with any easy one - who owns the documents. Without clear ownership, you don’t have anyone who can put their foot down when required and get things done. And this can mean that PDS rolls can drag on for months and months, which is not only excruciating, but also increases the risk that something is missed.
In the various companies I’ve work at or with, I’ve seen marketing, product, operations, legal, compliance, or even the CEO have responsibility for PDSs. Frankly, I’m not fussed who the PDS owner is. You just need someone who has KPIs around quality, risk management and timeliness of product rolls.
2 – Hidden costs
The second reason is that many of the costs of PDSs are hidden. From the top-down, it’s hard to see what it’s really costing. And the better your PDS manager is, the more the costs are hidden, which in turn increases key man risk.
When I say ‘cost’, I mean person hours as well as invoices for typesetting, technology, contractors etc. From our research, we know that a PDS roll for 20 documents takes about 500 hours of project management time alone. Ouch.
Plus, as PDS rolls become more frequent, everyone involved can do less and less of their day job, so opportunity cost can become a significant issue too. You really should be asking, how many hours do PDSs take up? And what would my people be doing if they weren’t having to spend so much time on offer documents?
The other cost is more around burn-out and job dissatisfaction. It is categorically NOT fun making changes across 20 documents at a time, trying to keep all the stakeholders happy, negotiate turf wars and do your day job on the side. Ask me how I know… You do need good people working on PDSs though, they aren’t something to leave to the last man standing.
If you’re concerned about the cost of PDSs in your business, you could:
Message me for a copy of my ‘back of the envelope’ PDS cost calculator
Write a list of all the projects that you haven’t been able to do because of PDS rolls
Ask your people how they feel about PDS rolls and check that your people (especially your PDS manager!) aren’t burning out
3 – Not my day job
Aside from the PDS manager, nearly everyone else will be trying to fit in PDS reviews around everything else they have on their plate. This means that PDSs play second (or potentially 14th) fiddle to everything else going on the business. And while you might say, well this is OK, we get there in the end, it does often mean that people are ‘getting around’ to looking at PDSs at the end of the day, or at home.
The problem here is that you aren’t getting fresh eyes on your documentation. And you should be. Your people should be considering what ASFA is looking at, what ASIC is looking at, where the last 12 months of complaints have focused. And this requires brain space.
If your PDS team (including the project manager, people who contribute to PDSs, the Due Diligence Committee and anyone else involved) are working on PDSs outside business hours, then you have a problem. And yes, I write this knowing full well that this is just the reality for most businesses.
You’ve got a few options as to how to proceed here – you could:
Hire more people
Consider technology
Look at your processes
Often it’s a combo of all three that’s required.
4 – Time pressure
Want to do a bad job of something? Add some time pressure. And with PDSs, there’s always time constraints.
If it’s not an ASIC deadline, it’s a successor fund transfer, and if it’s not that, it’s an IT or investment change. Or a new product.
Frankly, it’s pretty tricky to do much about this from a PDS point of view. You might be able to reduce the number of rolls by implementing a number of changes at the same time, but of course that just introduces other risks. Sorry.
5 – No upside and no party
Putting aside the discussion about what a PDS is really for (more on that in another article soon) there’s just no upside to PDSs. PDSs are either good enough, or they are not. And you often only find out three years down the track when there’s a complaint. This makes it difficult for your people to stay enthusiastic, as it’s primarily a risk management exercise for a future date.
And in my experience, at the end of a PDS roll, everyone slinks back to their desks to exhaustedly look at the to-do list that they’ve been ignoring for the last month.
How to overcome this? Well, it occurs to me that when a big IT project finishes, there’s usually a party or at least an email from the boss saying well done. I think we should do more of this in PDS land. Yes, I know it’s the PDS manager’s job and the DDC members’ job. But a nice email or taking the team out for a drink (Covid permitting of course) goes a long way to making everyone feel a bit better about all the hard work that has gone in.
6 – Bad behaviour
I’m sure you have never seen this kind of rubbish at your shop, and while it’s often the circumstances that make someone behave badly, here are just a few of the things that I’ve seen over the years:
Just not getting around to reading the doc until the PDS manager sits next to them and begs
Leaving it until the 3rd draft to actually read it and provide comments
Even better, leaving it until it’s been typeset before reading and providing comments
Refusing to sign verification certificates
Providing crappy (or no) evidence for verification
Forgetting about a change that needs to go in until the 4th draft
Etc!
The solution to all these is strong project management and leadership. And then a big stick. Joking. Sort of…
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So there you have it, the 6 main reasons why PDS rolls are just the worst. What do you think? What have I missed? Should it be the 7 deadly sins of PDSs? Leave a comment below if you like!