WhatsApp and Operations and the 2 blue ticks proving I read..

I have been managing Operations / Delivery on-and-off. However post WhatsApp's popularity, my first exposure to Operations as an Operations Director was few years back for a Telecommunications company

I was used to working with SLAs / SOPs of all kinds.. but this time it was a new challenge..

On top of what was mentioned in the SOPs or on top of what was agreed as SLAs , I had to respect the communication over WhatsApp.

How come you didn't notify us about the issue over our WhatsApp Group??

This was the most common question.. And was this covered by any SOP or SLA. For sure No ..

What is the update on the issue we sent on our WhatsApp group in the morning ? We even sent a screenshot of it..

So another task of searching this issue in 100s of other messages of smileys / "Thanks" / "Great Job" / "Any Updates" / "Nothing is working" / "It's a showstopper" .. and then asking someone to work on it , with regular updates now on few hundred Internal groups and few hundred External groups .. Again these efforts; no where covered in any contract..

Another problem .. rumours about issues ..

I heard on the other group that there is a problem going on..

Now this problem was either a false alarm or has been already fixed. But since this gentle(wo)man / just scanned his whatsapp messages .. he or she is curious. and since I have read the message and someone has seen those 2 blue tick I am obligated to respond..

Again these efforts are not covered by any contract..

Now before you make a perception about me , that I am a cribber ..

I do have positive things to say about the use of WhatsApp in Operations

Guys , I am creating this whatsapp group and please add your experts so that we solve the issue within no time..

All experts on Whatsapp, keeping a tab on the updates or jumping in wherever they could help is surely a boon. And in a pretty critical impacting issue..

these 2 blue tick marks from an expert would surely be an RELIEF..