How to Make a Process Completely Foolproof
| by Steve Flick | ||||
We all know what “corrective action” is, right? If you don’t, it’s really easy. It’s an action you take to eliminate the root cause of a problem (or nonconformance), thereby preventing — or reducing the likelihood of — the problem’s recurrence.
So, define the problem. (Well, see, it’s like this. Our skater was ahead — I mean “way ahead” — in the longest of the long-distance races. It’s, like, six miles. And with nearly three-quarters of the race gone, his opponent’s nowhere near him. He might as well be in another building…or another country.)
Doesn’t sound like a problem to me. (I was about to get to that. It’s at that point that our guy’s supposed to switch lanes to the outside. Only our coach says, “INSIDE!”, and our guy GOES inside, like he’s told. And because he didn’t switch lanes, our man’s DQ-ed.)
DQ-ed? (Disqualified. He had the best time, but didn’t win the race. We had the best man, the best coaches, the best training, best nutrition, best staff, the fastest track…and we have nothing to show for all that. No winner, no medal, no endorsements…nothing.)
And why was your man disqualified? (Like I said, the coach said “go inside” and he went inside. The coach made a mistake. So did our skater, I guess.)
Why did the coach tell your skater to go inside? (He wasn’t paying close attention…he was distracted…he was confused, somehow.)
Why did the skater do what the coach said? (He trusted the coach. He wasn’t paying attention, either.)
Why weren’t they paying attention? (I can’t say for sure. Maybe they were so far ahead, they got a little careless.)
See what we did? Recognize the “Five Whys”? We got down to a possible root cause. I say ”possible” because we rely on an individual’s focus, memory and biases. If we subject several people, including the skater and coach, to the “Five Whys”, we get a somewhat balanced result.
Now that we’ve identified a root cause, how do we eliminate it? Better yet, “What does this have to do with MY business?” For the answer to these and other questions…
…stay tuned.
Categories:
Process Management
Tags:
corrective action • effective processes • root cause • root cause analysis
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Originally published in 2010 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title How to Make a Process Completely Foolproof. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com
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