How many SDMB people have to write standard operating procedures from time to time? If you do, how often do you write a procedure and think that it’s OK because no one would ever _______ (fill in the blank) but then you have to make a revision because eventually someone actually does that? One of my favorite examples was when I wrote “Place the sample in the jar, put the lid on the jar, and shake vigorously for two minutes.” I had to revise it to read “Place the sample in the jar, put the lid on the jar, and shake the jar vigorously for two minutes.” Some people are stupid, some people are a**holes, and some people are both. Does anyone else have some examples they would like to share?
If you make something idiot proof, someone will make a better idiot.
What, they didn’t make you say, “tighten the lid” ?
I would say don’t help them but I don’t work there anymore so it’s someone else’s problem now.
I once had a boss who said “Don’t try to make it idiot proof. The best you can do is make it idiot resistant.”
“With your hands, not your teeth.”
Not much better, perhaps worse if you ever get audited on following your procedures. How are you going to determine two minutes? Is that “exactly two minutes”, “not more than two minutes”, or “at least two minutes”? Do you have a stopwatch (with traceable calibration) to ensure an accurate time?
A better procedure would be, “Place sample in the jar. Put the lid on the jar and shake the jar vigorously for sufficient time to ensure the contents are fully mixed [or emulsified, or whatever the object of shaking is].” The procedure is not supposed to dictate to the worker how to do his job; the basic assumption is that the worker knows how to do his job. If the worker doesn’t know how to do the job, additional training is needed and whatever the procedure says probably isn’t gong to help.
The purpose of the procedure is to describe what the worker is doing, so that if a problem arises from the job being done incorrectly, management can rely on either the worker was not following procedure or the procedure was inadequate. Either way, the solution is obvious enough that even a manager who knows nothing about the process can implement an effective solution. If you make your procedures too restrictive, you end up with procedures that nobody is going to follow. I have seen many more problems arising from procedures that were so restrictive that they weren’t followed than problems resulting from the the procedure failing to define every minor aspect of the job.
I have found that many of QA types who audit procedures are quick to point out grammatical issues (such as the implied object in the OPs example) that could lead to confusion as to what was required, but they are more than satisfied to allow you to write in unnecessary (or overly restrictive) requirements that can cause problems later on.
In this case the intent was approximately two minutes. I might have even said approximately. I don’t remember. It’s been a long time. Some of the workers in this scenario could not be trusted to mix until the contents were fully mixed. They might shake it for a couple of seconds and think that was sufficient.
I wholeheartedly agree that you should never put something in an SOP if you know in your heart that it will never be done unless somebody is watching.
“… the basic assumption is that the worker knows how to do his job . …” That might be OK where your from but it has never worked for me.
If the technician was shaking vigorously for two minutes, but not shaking the jar, then what was the technician shaking? Himself/herself? If so, was the technician still holding the jar? If so, the jar would be getting shaken along with.
So the OP’s SOP would be better clarified by writing:
“. . . put the lid on the jar and, while still holding the jar, shake vigorously for two minutes.”
Believe it or not, there were a couple of knuckleheads that would sit the jar down on the counter and shake themselves for two minutes. They might have been messing with me but they had an inside path management that would turn it into me being the idiot.
“Not you, the jar”.
Ya think?
This totally vindicates the critique of your SOP that I posted just a few posts above. You needed to include the detail that they should continue to hold the jar while shaking.
This isn’t too different than having students new to computer programming get used to being precise when describing an algorithm. In one of my classes, I split the students into groups and gave them a few minutes to write directions to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When they were done, to their surprise I pulled out a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly. When they said “open the bread” I’d tear the bag wide open in the middle. When they said “put the peanut butter on the bread” I would plop the entire jar on the slice of bread. If they said “put some jelly on the bread” I would take a tiny smidgen and ask them if that’s right. They caught on; some years the students learned that this exercise was coming.
OTOH some got too long-winded, such as “hold the jar in your left hand and turn the cap CCW to remove the lid with your right hand”. I’d make the jokes with the too-short instructions, then compare them to the too-detailed set, and finally pick a good-enough in-between set of instructions.
For real, at a former job, we once had an HR director tell us, “Don’t hire the smart people. They’ll quit.”
I was a new employee (Manager of Financial Planning & Analysis) as was my boss (Vice President of Finance). The company had a policy that said:
“All new account requests must be approved by the Manager of Financial Planning & Analysis”
(These are accounts like “20951 Floor Cleaning Services” not customer or vendor accounts)
I denied a new account requested by the accounting department. They wanted a new account to record plastic wrap costs separately from paper wrap. This kind of shit is how we already had over 2500 expense accounts, most of which had under $1000 in annual activity (this was a $10+ BILLION company!). They (Accounting) got more hours and headcount based on how many accounts they had to reconcile. My charter from the CFO was to simplify the chart of accounts.
The Accounting Director was livid. He printed out the policy, highlighted the word “must” and claimed that the policy meant that “must” meant that I had no discretion. If they submitted an account request I had to approve it. He went to my boss, who stared at I’m as if he had gone mad.
Accounting Director went to the Risk & Controls department sided with the Accounting department. They also gained power and headcount from having an ever sprawling and complex accounting and reporting scheme.
There was soon a big shake-up. This was after a large fraud was uncovered that had been going on for years, and the Director of Risk & Controls denied all responsibility and was fired (“retired” at age 52). Company almost went bankrupt, and was acquired by a much more progressive firm.
I have worked with several hundred companies and have never in my life been in a workplace where this wasn’t a pretty solid assumption. If you think you know better than someone else how to do their job, you’re almost always overestimating your own understanding.
This isn’t to say a company doesn’t need SOPs or work instructions (what you describe in your OP is not an SOP, it’s a work instruction) but they aren’t to keep incompetent employees doing stuff right, for the obvious reason that that would not work.
Imagine if the contents in the jar cost the company thousands of dollars and the guy who is shaking the jar screws it up.
Manager: what happened?
Shaker: IDK, I did everything I was supposed to. I think it’s a bad jar.
Jar tech: No the jar is fine. He didn’t tighten the lid.
Manager: why didn’t you tighten the lid?
Shaker: The SOP doesn’t say to tighten the lid!
Manager: SOP guy, WTF?
SOP: Oh for fucks sake!
That’s pretty much what I have to deal with.
I write SOP documents because the staff don’t know what to do. It’s not the case that our intelligent and dedicated staff can be trusted to do the right thing: they won’t know what the right thing is until I tell them.
So in my case, the SOP says 2 minutes, because the staff won’t know how long it takes to properly mix the material unless I tell them.
There is a guy who can figure out what is required and how to do it. That guy is me.
This happened when I was younger, the first week on the job at my first real job. I had to construct a splash shield. I acquired a piece of Plexiglass that was almost the right size but it was 1/4 " too tall and needed a small notch in one corner to fit over a piece of trim. I had no access to tools but we had an entire staff of carpenters at our disposal. I took a red marker pen and marked in red the strip across the top and the small square in the corner that had to removed. I submitted it to a carpenter with the instructions to cut off everything marked in red. About a week later he brings it back and I thank him profusely. I begin to install it but notice that nothing has been removed. I asked the carpenter, “Did you cut off everything I marked in red?” He replied, “We didn’t have to cut that red ink of after all. We got it to wash off.”