Quiz: Technology and Systems
21 items: 12 multiple choice · 5 true/false · 3 short answer · 1 applied scenario with rubric.
Answers in <details>. Attempt each before opening.
Part 1 — Multiple Choice (12)
Q1. A system is:
(a) The software you use (b) The mechanism by which a finding becomes a change (c) A set of templates (d) A documented workflow
Answer
**(b).** **You can run an excellent practice on a spreadsheet and a notebook and a chaotic one on a $200 platform** — and the difference has almost nothing to do with the tools. **Without a system, a planner's tenth wedding is their first wedding, ten times.**Q2. The single commonest reason a written finding produces no change:
(a) It was written badly (b) Found and fixed are the same column (c) The planner was too busy (d) It was not important enough
Answer
**(b).** **A row containing a finding looks handled.** The stationery error was *caught* in month nine and stayed wrong for eleven months for exactly this reason. **The fix: two columns, an owner, and a date.**Q3. Of the four system components — artefacts, triggers, conventions, a closing loop — how many are software?
(a) All four (b) Two (c) One (d) None
Answer
**(d).** **Software is a delivery mechanism for the four, not a fifth** — which is why Chapter 36 said buy the platform fourth. **A platform without the four is an empty container with a subscription.**Q4. The test of whether you have a system rather than expertise:
(a) Whether you use a CRM (b) Whether your templates are current (c) Could somebody competent run your next event from your documents, without you? (d) Whether you have written procedures
Answer
**(c).** **If the answer is no, a broken ankle is a business failure** — and Chapter 27 established that a solo planner whose absence means no planner has sold something they cannot always deliver.Q5. "I must remember to ask about access" is:
(a) A trigger (b) An intention, with zero reliability (c) A convention (d) An artefact
Answer
**(b).** **A trigger is a moment at which a document must be opened, and it appears without being remembered.** Time-based and event-based triggers are reliable; **threshold-based ones are the most valuable and almost nobody has them.**Q6. The most valuable and least common kind of trigger:
(a) Time-based (b) Event-based (c) Threshold-based (d) Intention-based
Answer
**(c)** — *when the guest count moves by more than 10, re-run the catering and the floor plan.* **It is where Chapter 5's master variable actually gets managed**, because a count drifting from 100 to 118 across nine months never triggers anything.Q7. In the nine-function stack, the function that is free and almost universally absent:
(a) Money (b) Files (c) Knowledge — the finding log, the venue file, the template library (d) Design
Answer
**(c).** **Against a full stack at $250 a month — a quarter of Chapter 36's annual fixed costs — function 8 at $0 is the best-value line in the table by an enormous margin.**Q8. The platform-evaluation question that matters most:
(a) Can it do everything I need? (b) What does it cost? (c) What does it not do that I will therefore stop doing? (d) Does it integrate with my accounting?
Answer
**(c)**, and nobody asks it. **A platform without a floor-plan tool means you will stop drawing floor plans**, and Chapter 11 established what that costs.Q9. The naming convention the chapter recommends:
(a) RunSheet_FINAL_v2.pdf
(b) Reyes-Whitfield_RunSheet.pdf
(c) 2026-09-12_Reyes-Whitfield_RunSheet_v4.pdf
(d) Whatever the platform generates
Answer
**(c).** **Date first so things sort; version last so the current one is obvious** — plus one place, one current version with an immediate archive, and the same tree every event.Q10. "89 — seated dinner @ 12 sq ft" rather than "89" fixes:
(a) A naming problem (b) Four separate errors this book made — the barn, the wine pull, the gaffer tape, and the contingency (c) A data-protection issue (d) A versioning problem
Answer
**(b).** **All four were the same error: a quantity correct for one question, used to answer another.** **The convention costs four words.**Q11. A guest list with dietary requirements is:
(a) Ordinary business data (b) Health information, which attracts specific legal protection in many jurisdictions (c) The caterer's responsibility (d) Exempt because the client provided it
Answer
**(b)** — as an access list is disability information and the emergency page contains medical facts about named individuals. **The fact that a couple gave them to you does not remove your obligations.**Q12. In the five-field finding log, the load-bearing field is:
(a) The date found (b) The finding (c) The artefact to change (d) The owner
Answer
**(c).** ***"Be more careful with times"* cannot be closed; *"the catering brief is populated from the rehearsal-confirmed duration"* can.** And the *closed* column must be separate, **so an open row is visibly unfinished forever.**Part 2 — True or False (5)
Q13. Buying a good planning platform will give a new planner a system.
Answer
**False.** **A platform encodes a workflow into a business that does not have one, and it hides the seams** — a spreadsheet you built is transparent. **Run three or four events on your own documents first; you will choose differently.**Q14. A log of unclosed findings is better than no log.
Answer
**False, and this is the chapter's sharpest claim.** **It documents that you knew, and it produces the feeling of having acted** — ninety-one entries and four changes in three years. **A finding gets an owner and a due date, or it is not logged.**Q15. A template used unchanged for four years is a sign of a stable, well-designed system.
Answer
**False.** **It is a snapshot of what you knew in year one.** **The difference between a template and a system is that a template changes** — it gains a line after every event.Q16. An automated thank-you message is better than none.
Answer
**False.** **It signals that the moment was processed rather than noticed.** Chapter 32's forty-second board-member call is the counter-example — **it does not scale, and that is the point.**Q17. A determined planner can implement most of the systems changes they identify in a season.
Answer
**False, and pretending otherwise is how none of them happen.** **Twenty-two correct, cheap changes; a working planner will do three or four.** **So the audit is a ranking plus an explicit decision about what does not get done** — because a change you decided not to make is a decision, and a change you forgot is a finding that died.Part 3 — Short Answer (3)
Q18. Explain why five correct, well-written findings in this book produced no change.
Answer
**Because *caught* and *fixed* were the same column.** A row containing a finding looks handled, **and the list closes when it is written rather than when it is resolved.** **Plus four other mechanisms.** The change lands in the wrong artefact — *"ask about access earlier"* is a note; **the RSVP template is the artefact.** **The artefact is not opened before the next event**, because it was attached to intention rather than to a trigger. **The finding was filed under the wrong heading** — Chapter 35's four lonely travellers were logged as a carbon finding and were a guest-experience one. **And there are too many**, which is the reason nobody admits.Q19. Give the trigger set and say why it is the highest-return item in the chapter.
Answer
**Ten triggers, applied from a template at signing, to every event:** **−12 months** venue file and the save-the-date access text · **−9** category-D check and permissions *granted to whom* · **−6** the access asking, sent by a family member, and the rain plan · **−3** timeline and the first production meeting · **−8 weeks** decision protocol and **insurance certificates checked against dates** · **−2 weeks** read-through and final numbers once on the Thursday · **−72 hours** emergency page and the four-weather review · **+2 days** incident notes and the finding log · **+2 weeks** debrief, reconciliation, and the systems changes · **+12 months** the query nobody runs. **Four minutes per event.** **And every row is a finding from an earlier chapter that would otherwise depend on somebody remembering.**Q20. State the capacity problem and how to choose.
Answer
**Thirty-eight chapters produced twenty-two systems changes. Every one is correct and cheap. A working planner will implement three or four in a season.** **So the audit is a ranking and an explicit decision about what does not get done this year** — otherwise the decision gets made by attrition and the important ones go with the rest. **Prioritise: prevents an expensive error · compounds · has caught you twice · takes under thirty minutes · closes a finding more than a year old.** **Defer: saves minutes · one-off · from a single event · requires a new tool.** **And write the deferred list down with dates**, because a change you decided not to make is a decision and a change you forgot is a finding that died.Part 4 — Applied Scenario (1)
Q21. A planner, year five, eleven weddings and two corporate events a year. Uses: a planning platform ($89/mo, bought in year one), a spreadsheet for budgets, email for everything else, a phone for photographs, and a notebook. No finding log. No venue file. No naming convention — run sheets live in the platform, in email, and on a desktop. Attribution: none. Guest lists with dietary and medical data are in shared spreadsheets with link access.
Last season: an insurance certificate lapsed unnoticed · a guest count moved 84 → 109 with no re-plan · a load factor was re-derived from memory and a generator was under-specified · and a client asked why the ceremony had been moved and the planner could not remember.
Produce: the four missing components · the four changes for this season, ranked · the data problem and its minimum fix · and what you defer, with reasons.