Separating people from process

Many years ago I heard a fantastic phrase from Robert Uyekawa: "you should separate people from process."

An example:  The pianist for a church choir was out of town and made arrangements for a substitute during practice.  She reviewed the music with the substitute who indicated she already had copies.  That Sunday, one song the choir had practiced and knew well for some time suddenly seemed very difficult.  Members of the choir quietly mumbled displeasure towards the substitute pianist because she apparently could not play the notes correctly.

The director walked over to the piano and found the copy of the song the pianist brought had a different arrangement.  She had been playing the notes correctly the entire time according to the music she had in front of her.

Robert points out that problems arise not from the people interacting with a process, but from the process itself either creating the problems or allowing them to exist.

When defects appear in a product or service, sometimes the human interactions with the process may have had an influence.  However, is your process for creating the product or delivering the service robust enough to prevent human errors from introducing defects?  Do your policies include disciplinary action for employees involved with quality issues or do you instead have a provision for modifying the process itself to eliminate the potential for future defects?