Strategies for preventing simple but destructive errors
Today’s post is our SafeSourcing Archives
All human activities have a percentage of error. For example, out of all the email we send in a day some percentage will have a grammar error, for all the mouse clicks we make in a day some percentage will miss their targets. These “fat-finger” category mistakes are fairly benign, and would take quite a bit of corrective time and effort to reduce. Sure, we could spend an extra 10 hours a week slowing our clicks and typing down to a crawl to make sure they never miss their mark, but most businesses don’t have the spare time or patience to do so. However, when our processes have vulnerabilities built into them, where a stray click can create a lawsuit level problem, the “fat-finger” category of mistakes suddenly becomes a big deal.
Make no mistake, inadvertent minor errors WILL happen, and there’s nothing economically feasible you can do to eliminate them entirely. You CAN however, structure your processes and systems in a way that makes it difficult or impossible for small mistakes to have unforgivable consequences.
Identify your vulnerabilities: Evaluate your systems for what functions are business-critical. What processes, buttons or links have the highest risk associated with their execution? Which ones would buy something your business couldn’t afford, send messages you can’t take back, or delete records you can’t recover?
Create roadblocks: You know those pop-ups that annoy you so badly that say “are you sure?” after you’ve hit the “buy now” link? These intention-checking messages help you slow down your furious clicking, and can prevent execution of an erroneous command.
Improve bad layouts: Do your systems have dangerous buttons/links right next to innocuous links? Maybe your “print” button is next to your “fire everybody” button? Your “Decline award of business” button next to your “buy all” button? Your copy/paste command next to your “wipe database” command? There’s no good reason to build vulnerability into your system layout.
Sensitive Communications: Are you frequently sending sensitive information back and forth over email that you could be automating through a system with protections in place? One mistake and you could send proprietary information from steve@vendorA to steve@vendorB, and you have a breach of confidentiality on your hands. Take advantage of the data segmenting capabilities available in most modern systems.
Even your most talented team member will make a small mistake, and if it’s at the wrong place at the wrong time, or wrong link on the wrong system, it can have disastrous consequences. Don’t get rid of the talent, remove the unnecessary vulnerabilities in your systems, so that your people can focus on using their skills. Your company’s internal processes shouldn’t be its riskiest activity.
For more information on how SafeSourcing can assist your team with this process or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.
