"When do you institute the rule?" When you realise you have a (potential) problem. It stops it getting worse. "What is the quantum of a 'check'?" More tricky

"When do you institute the rule?" When you realise you have a (potential) problem. It stops it getting worse. "What is the quantum of a 'check'?" More tricky, certainly. That's a potential big problem. "Does the limit apply department-by-department or company-wide?" Whatever makes sense. The idea of the exercise would be basically to: - build an appreciation throught the organisation that checks have a cost - provide a (albeit imperfect) mechanism for exercising some control over it Something doesn't have to be perfect to be of use. "The last thing you want to do is encourage teams of lawyerly meta-checkers to run around enforcing rules about rules. That's costly, squared." That's just ISO9001, isn't it? :-)