Run Sheets, Rehearsals and Kit Sheets: The Tools We Use to Audit a Workflow
Rachel Whitcombe
5 min read
Part two of our look at workflow audits: the paper, spreadsheets and rehearsal methods we rely on when we review a production process and train teams on their own equipment.
Why we start with paper, not equipment
When I begin a workflow audit, the first thing I ask for is whatever the team already writes down: old run sheets, rundowns, cue lists, even a photographed whiteboard. Paper tells me how a programme is really thought about. A run sheet with timings but no camera numbers tells me the director carries the shots in their head. A sheet with every cue but no fallback tells me nobody has planned for a guest arriving late.
We read these documents before visiting the studio, so the visit is spent watching rather than introducing ourselves. By the time Daniel or Priya walk the gallery with me, we already have three or four questions that the paperwork raised, and the answers usually sit in the room, in how people move between desk and floor.
The run sheet as a working tool
The run sheet we write for clients is deliberately plain: one page per programme segment, in columns for running time, source, camera, audio, graphics and a note for the floor manager. We avoid colour coding that only makes sense to the person who made it. If a new director cannot pick the sheet up ten minutes before going live and follow it, it is too clever.
We build each sheet from rehearsal observations rather than from the format document. The format says a segment lasts four minutes; the stopwatch in rehearsal says three and a half, with a pause for the guest to settle. That half minute is written in, together with who covers it and what is on air while it passes.
- Running time and clock time shown side by side
- One named person against every cue
- A written fallback for each guest and each live feed
- Space for the director's own shorthand
Kit sheets and signal diagrams
The second document is a kit sheet: a list of every device the production touches, where it sits, how it is powered and what it connects to. Beside it goes a simple signal diagram, drawn by hand first and tidied afterwards. Most studios have a diagram somewhere, and most are out of date by at least one router port or monitor feed.
Redrawing it with the team in the room is the point. When the person who patches the intercom corrects the line I have drawn, we have found something real. The final version is laminated and fixed near the rack, because a diagram kept in an email folder is of no use at ten to seven in the evening.
Rehearsal as a measuring instrument
We treat rehearsal as the main way of measuring a workflow, not as a courtesy before the broadcast. A timed run-through, done in order and without stopping unless something breaks, shows where attention is lost. We note every spoken request on talkback that was repeated, every glance toward the wrong monitor, and every cue that arrived a beat late.
Afterwards we sit down with the team and go through the notes without blame. People are quick to say what they would change once they see it listed. Our job is mostly to put the list in front of them and help them rank it, since a team can usually fix three things before the next show but not twelve.
Training on the kit people actually use
Training follows the audit and is built from its findings. We do not run a general course on vision mixers; we teach the particular mixer in your gallery, with your macros, your naming of sources and your usual faults. A new operator learns best at the desk with the real show file loaded, so that is where we work, usually in short sessions spread over a few visits.
We leave behind a one-page quick reference for each role, written in the team's own vocabulary. If the floor manager calls it the blue camera, the sheet says the blue camera. Those pages, along with the run sheet and kit sheet, are what makes the training last after we have gone home.
- Sessions held at the operator's own desk
- Quick-reference pages written per role
- Short follow-up visit once the team has run a few shows
What a team ends up holding
By the end of an engagement a team holds a small set of documents: a run sheet template, a kit sheet, a corrected signal diagram, role cards and a short list of agreed changes in priority order. None of it is elaborate, and that is deliberate. Our experience is that simple documents survive staff changes and busy seasons, while grand process manuals are filed and forgotten.
In these mid-autumn weeks, with many venues preparing for winter schedules and seasonal programming, it is a sensible moment to look at how your production actually runs. If you would like to talk about an audit, the contact page is the place to start.
A workflow audit is less about finding fault than about writing down what your team already does well and making it repeatable. The tools are modest: a clear run sheet, an honest kit diagram, a timed rehearsal and training done on your own equipment. Used together, they let a crew cope with a late guest or a failed feed calmly, because the plan was written by the people who will carry it out.