5 lessons about #AML and #risk vendors from buying a new microwave &#; I bought a new microwave recently. It sucks. Here&#;s what I learned from a $200 consumer appliance purchase that&#;s equally applicable to a multi million dollar system upgrade. 1- If you&#;re not early, you&#;re late. The biggest source of stress was that I waited for my old microwave to &#;die.&#; For context, that thing was a decade old - I thought it might outlive me! So one day recently when the light went, I thought &#;that&#;s okay, it still makes food hot!&#; And it did&#; for a while. Until it randomly didnt on a day I really, really needed it. 2- If you need rapid integration, your options are limited and you&#;ll pay a premium. After a bit of research I found THE UBER MICROWAVE&#; but it was out of stock and on back order everywhere. Then I found a number of &#;pretty good&#; options&#; that had all been on sale recently. I could have saved money if I wasn&#;t in a rush by being prepared enough. 3- Try before you buy. These days, a demo environment isn&#;t much to ask; brochures only go so far. The thing I was concerned with was the door, which I tested in store. Noob mistake. What I didn&#;t realise (due to not testing) is there&#;s no ability to just hit &#;start&#; to nuke something for 1 minute on this microwave. The minimum number of button presses is actually 3(!) to set power level, time, and begin. Atrocious. 4- Testimonials are as useful and trustworthy as their source. Reading online reviews, it sounded like my new microwave would solve world hunger. It can barely even solve mine and is brilliant at making things either patchy cold or the temperature of the surface of the sun. 5- It&#;s not about the system, it&#;s about the output. When Jobs launched the iPod, Apple didn&#;t say &#;huge hard drive MP3 player.&#; No, they went with &#; songs in your pocket.&#; For microwaves, the benefit is heated food. For risk systems, the output is risk management. Focus more on what you&#;re going to be getting through the purchase (and how satisfied you&#;ll be with the quality) than the specifics. BONUS TIP: User experience is relevant for risk. I&#;ve had many more &#;risk incidents&#; and &#;control breaches&#; due to the poor UX on my new machine. It doesn&#;t beep when food is done (tsk tsk, all alerts need some level of automation!) so people tend to wonder off and leave a cup in there to be spilled by the next person. And to get 1:30 it takes 6 clicks, but to get either 1 minute or 2 takes 3 or 4 clicks, so you can bet there&#;s very little nuance in the heating settings of the Raven household these days (especially when it&#;s warming up a coffee &#;&#;). Systems and tools are used by people, who will find a way to make their lives easier even if it partly defeats the purpose of the exercise. This is one of the weirder posts I think I&#;ve made for #compliance people but it&#;s been rattling around my head for a while &#;&#;&#;&#; PS: what&#;s your microwave recommendation? _______________________________________