The messaging process is alive. Its vigour is one measure of its success. It is difficult to predict and should not be regulated in ways unsympathetic to its objectives. It is useful to ask the question "What can be sacrificed without damaging the process?"

Here are some ways in which to consider managing temporary overloads:

1. Take on more people if support resources permit. Reallocate from other tasks, borrow from other groups, or ask for volunteers from the participants.

2. Streamline - eg. if the backlog is with the French messages, separate out the French from other languages and devise a process to handle them separately.

3. Cut out messages at an early stage by making editorial decisions about significance (participants should receive some explanation).

4. Relax quality standards for time consuming tasks - eg. layout (see Master Copies and Layout / E6).

5. Encourage participants to input their messages themselves into the computer terminals.

6. Study the throughput process and identify bottlenecks (see Bottlenecks / S5).

See also Shifts / P1.

Written by Nadia McLaren, Union of International Associations, with revisions and HTML layout by Robert Pollard, Information Habitat: Where Information Lives.