Human Error Implies a Human Equation

It was reported today that 15 Million Johnson & Johnson Doses Reportedly Ruined Due Human Error At Baltimore Plant

The article I read can be found here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/03/31/15-million-johnson--johnson-covid-19-vaccine-doses-reportedly-ruined-due-human-error-at-baltimore-plant/?sh=2c427b354e77

They cited "human error". I have a thing with the word error. If there is error, it implies there is a mathematical equation. You may not know the equation, but there is a mathematical equation operating, and it doesn't care if you know about it. When I hear error my ears perk up. I want to find the equation.

Since I work as a sort of mathematical consultant in the "Human Area", I am keen to identify and test human equations. The writers on this topic are still silent, I'll present a theoretical position. In an organization human error implies a breakdown somewhere in: People, Processes, Partnerships, Programs and Policies. Like it or hate it, these P's are how large organizations run "at scale". "At scale" is unfortunately becoming a buzzword. The difference between successfully producing 1 dose, 100 doses, 10,000 doses, and 10 million provides a practical definition of 'at scale'. Also, consider the differences between managing risks at these types of leaps. Somewhere in those leaps of scale you will find the problem. To get from one leap to the next, the energy is provided by an investment. The money invested was put in people, the rest of the money invested was directed by those people. So you can't ignore the energy is people. Funny though, accounting and finance does- it satisfices with a good understanding of where the dollars went.

It is a paradox that individual actions and decisions can be of great consequence, while at the same time generally being of no evident consequence at scale. However, this clearly shows that if you have not deliberately managed your P's the pesky people stuff can be a big problem. Is that soft or hard? Sort of - it is sort of soft to understand and sort of hard to stomach - but not rocket science.

Speaking of rocket science, it is not a secret that "human error" is also what caused the space shuttle challenger to blow up with humans on board, while being watched by nearly every school child in America. Books have been written, and documentaries produced. They know exactly what went wrong, and they know how, and they know why, and it involved humans.

When we say error we think of one scientist transposing a variable in a bio-chemical equation. The reality is that an error of this scale can get as far as it did it suggests many people in error - importantly a failure to understand how to build an effective organization.

The P related variables precede all profits (past innovations), all innovation (future profits), and all sources of destruction (wasted value). Examine any great success or any great failure carefully and you will always see it. Error is caused by a lack of awareness and responsiveness to something, which until instructed otherwise, is not the machines jobs to identify. Humans are responsible for identifying customer changes, competition changes, constraint changes, constraints and other conditions. That's what humans are designed for. It is what we are good at.

"You have one job." You are sensor in a changing universe. A single processor in a collective endeavor. From the moment we could communicate with each other we intuitively deployed this advantage, well before we understood it.

Processes are or should be designed for customer value - which varies. For vaccines, efficacy and safety are off the top of the chart. The J&J process caught it. Unfortunately, the partner created 15 million doses of something BEFORE they learned they did it wrong. J&J is safe. The partner dies on this error. The partners investors feel sick to their stomach. Generally, it would be imperative to catch the error sooner. I don't know when. Maybe before 1 million doses? Ideally before 10.

Consider that all the people who work in the partner company must be paid with investors money regardless of outcome, so you have money spent without producing value. It doesn't matter if 85% of the employees were happy to work there, were "Committed", or were "Engaged." In this case: the output is still zero. If you are measuring human factors using these blunt variables and trying to straight line a linear equation from these to customer value you just totally missed it. You aimed for the moon and hurtled into outer space. Total and utter fail. You have no ability to understand the data you see, or derive control from it. You are only measuring the feelings that occurred as a function of prior events, not what proceeded them. This happens more often than anyone realizes, and will admit, in my field. Which is why it hasn't progressed as it should.

You usually don't have a J&J filter. You usually don't throw out the product. In other industries, the product is going to ship The cashier that is awful at customer service? She/He shipped. The policy that makes people want to spend less over time? It shipped. The process that permits errors? Shipped. They all shipped out. We grumble, we complain, we look for individuals to blame, we go elsewhere, but there is an equation. We ignored it and we shipped.

I use a value equation I call "Activation". What caused de-activation in this, or any case, can be found through a simple recursive exploration of four variables, which can be measured on team by team basis, compared, related to outcomes, and trended. It consists of looking for the presence or absence of four simultaneous minimum conditions: a.) alignment on customer value, b.) motivation, c.) capability, and d.) support. You cannot actually spot the error with this equation, but you can spot unactivated human sensors, whose job it is. Unactivated human sensors is what produces all business failures. Like some kind of machine you must solve for these one by one. You start somewhere, look for constraints, pay careful attention where you see alarms, and you keep improving.

It is simple, but not simple. It's different. Things that are different are often missed, but I'm telling you, it works.