West Point, from day one, pounds into Cadets the concept that every officer must pay “attention to detail”.  

I greatly admire Disney parades for their illustration of this precept.  If you have enjoyed one, you have seen “attention to detail” played out. What goes into making one of those parades nearly perfect?

 First, there is the staging area and the route. There are those who design and theme the parade and pick the equipment and the order.   Someone must design, make, paint, and test each piece of equipment, getting input from engineers, safety, designers, and legal. Then there are all the dancers, doing exact precision steps, and beautiful costumes. 

There are all the vehicles, some with natural gas effects and lots of glitter and spinning mechanical things that can go wrong. Then, there are  all the people that are involved in crowd control. Some of them are putting down and taking up ropes, some are ensuring that guests don’t hurt themselves and that there is a way to get through the parade at appropriate times, and some are just ensuring that the crowd is safe and happy. 

Next, there are those guests that are too rambunctious to be controlled by the regular staff, and there must be security staff available by walkie-talkie. Next, there has to be those that manage the parade, make sure that it starts on time, make sure that if there are guests that need accommodation, that it is provided, make certain that if cast members are sick, substitutes are provided. There is someone who has to monitor that the parade arrives to check points on time, and its equipment is properly put away and maintained. 

Almost certainly, there are managers responsible for each vehicle, each float, each set of dancers, for maintaining the costumes, maintaining the equipment, and storing it properly.  There are probably inspectors who watch from the audience viewpoint and monitor volume, pace, entertainment value, and visibility.

There have to be After Action Reports, reviews, and improvements suggested,  agreed upon, communicated, and implemented. In other words, the Disney parade is an amazingly well-orchestrated, well planned, well executed event.

May your own life, in its better moments, be a Disney Parade.