How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter information

bobdoering

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

People seem to "forget" verification steps all the time. Forms come back unsigned, and there there are other "holes" in your documents, you send it back to the process owners and they fill it out, but for all you know they could be making it up.

What do you do with the guy who will just never sign off?


Nope, didn't say that at all:nope:.......Apparently the questioning and discussion has been going on for some time now. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result...this appears to be the case. The time for talk is over, now is time for action...A poor example follows

Apparently the OP's problem is bad enough that he is seeking help from others and therefore his back is against the wall....it's time for the organization to bite to fix this problem and maybe by doing so minimize others.
Good point. All this fussing over whether the forms were so hard to fill out, that the people chose not to seems to be diluted by the fact that they figured out a way to do it the second time around. (How does that go? Never time to do it right the first time, always time to do it again?)

And what remedial training will the person need to remember how to sign his name?:rolleyes:
 
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Jim Wynne

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

People seem to "forget" verification steps all the time. Forms come back unsigned, and there there are other "holes" in your documents, you send it back to the process owners and they fill it out, but for all you know they could be making it up.
What do you do with the guy who will just never sign off?
Above is what the OP originally posted...It looks like there has been discussion and all the other "feel-good" done to no avail. What else is there to talk about? The solution is obvious...If you cannot "correct" the problem, then eliminate a cause of the problem and in doing so it maybe it might not resurface elsewhere because of the example. There are no guarantees, but at least part of the cause has been eliminated.
Where is the evidence of discussion and "all the other 'feel-good'"? The solution is obvious? I hope that some day when I grow up that I'll be able confidently offer "solutions" to problems I know almost nothing about.
 

bobdoering

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

I hope that some day when I grow up that I'll be able confidently offer "solutions" to problems I know almost nothing about.
There is always hope. Hang in there.:rolleyes:
 
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Polly Pure Bread

Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

I hope that some day when I grow up that I'll be able confidently offer "solutions" to problems I know almost nothing about.
:2cents:That’s everyone’s mission –otherliness stance and that’s why we are in the cove to help each other.
 

Jen Kirley

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

Where is the evidence of discussion and "all the other 'feel-good'"? The solution is obvious? I hope that some day when I grow up that I'll be able confidently offer "solutions" to problems I know almost nothing about.
I believe I could be the source of at least some of the "other feel good" and I advocate, from the outset, having the right people for the right job among other things. When I started out my QA journey, I was a trade for another HT2 who was in the QA Inspection office but hated the paperwork. He preferred the hands on work of welding, etc. I am not a big fan of complex paperwork, indeed I like to avoid it, but I am easy to convince it's needed when it's explained to me because I grasp the ramifications of its absence.

When people don't understand because it's not adequately explained to them, the outcome suffers.

When people fully understand but don't do it anyway because they aren't willing, the outcome suffers.

When people fully understand, are willing but cannot perform that part of the function, again the outcome suffers.

It's a trick to get someone who is both technically competent and spiritually devoted enough to endure the monotony of record keeping. It requires effort - both from the employee's side and the manager's side. It's no good to just place a bunch of tasks in front of any given person and say "Now get started." Failure to understand this is the reason why Dilbert is so popular, IMO.
 
D

davarino

Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

Hi everyone! It's almost the weekend...

I don't know if this has come up (actually, I'm sure it has and I just can't find it), but what do you do when people don't properly fill out documentation? I find problem is most prevalent in verifications. People seem to "forget" verification steps all the time. Forms come back unsigned, and there there are other "holes" in your documents, you send it back to the process owners and they fill it out, but for all you know they could be making it up.

Do you start initiating corrective actions on those employees who fail to sign in real time? Do you wait until you've had to reject too much paperwork?

What do you do with the guy who will just never sign off?

Well, there are all sorts of reasons that people do not fill out information.

First thing to remember is that the guy who will never sign off is always symptomatic... he's not the real problem. (The real problem is that you are not getting the information.)

He's trying to tell you that he sees no importance in signing off. (Maybe he's also trying to tell you that HR doesn't screen sociopaths well, either... but that's a different issue.)

I will enumerate several reasons, but there are many more.

1) Oftentimes, management is not deeply committed to collecting the data.

Your colleagues will sense this much more accurately than you, because you look good (or have a purpose for existence) by collecting info but your colleagues have to expend extra effort to supply it to you. (If there is a request for needless expenditure of effort, rest assured that the effort will rarely be exerted.)

You can not fix that problem. Don't worry yourself about it. The data that you are collecting in a situation like this is simply managerial hocus pocus. For heaven's sakes, don't get flustered by your powerlessness... just accept that management wishes to look up-to-date, competent, ISO compliant, Sick Sigma, or whatever else is the fad that they've hooked onto this year.

2) Your information gathering procedure may not be engineered to insure that information is supplied to you. For example, if you have a paper checklist people will often tick the information that is easiest for them to remember, skipping around the sheet. Or if you have a fill-me-in on a terminal, they can do the same unless you specifically require that answers be given in order to advance to the next page.

3) Which implies: you have a good idea of the nature and breadth of information that you are trying to gather. If your colleague would like to tell you something that your choice of answers doesn't permit ("Are you still beating your wife? Please answer only Yes or No")... assume that you will not receive any serious coöperation.

4) Often, I have found that fear of repercussion drives non-response. If that is the case, you will not get information even with all the assurances in the world that "nothing will happen". This is a very important factor to bear in mind.

Some younger and idealistic information gatherers will find the CYA attitude a terrible affront to their dream-image of a peaceful, non-combative organization filled with chums. Most of us who have been in the workforce for more than 25 years have seen many instances of political havoc wreaked on some of the most capable people, simply because they (Candide-like) believed assurances that management was not going to bite off heads or that information would be treated with strict confidentiality.

5) If the situation warrants "corrective action" (whatever that means: discipline, docking, firing?), well then... do it. Just remember that the information is probably not as important to you or your organization as your colleague's good will or the trust of others.

Bottom line, I believe that most (at least 90%) non-compliance is due to management weakness, incompetence, ineptness, or hypocrisy: Failing to explain why the information is valuable; failing to adequately design a communication channel; failing to insure that reporting the "wrong" kind of information is not going to harm the reporter; failing to "believe in the vision" that it says it does; etc.

So, I'd go along with what has been said previously, discuss it with the "culprit", gently ask an appropriate manager if s/he is aware of the problem and the probable cause, and then let go of it. Life is too short.
 

bobdoering

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

When people don't understand because it's not adequately explained to them, the outcome suffers.

When people fully understand but don't do it anyway because they aren't willing, the outcome suffers.
Good points. We don't know if they are a company that needs to be compliant to a standard - but if so, one might wonder what was missing in the training during implementation of the standard that left the participants thinking either they have the option of not doing something that is a part of their job or that once we pass the audit, we can go back to the old sloppy backyard operation. (What? You never witnessed that?)

If they don't need to be compliant to a standard, but wish to collect information both to minimize running the organization by urban legend, or to have something to review if a process fails - especially from the standpoint of a customer rejection. Then one might wonder what was missing in the training of the company's quality system that left the participants thinking either they have the option of not doing something that is a part of their job or that change is bad, only lasts for a short time because everyone knows they are just doing it as a new management fad, and when no one is looking (or babysitting, if you will) we can go back to the old sloppy backyard operation.

Either way, the outcome suffers.

I bet the training probably lacked upper management support, explaining once and for all that it is how it is going to be done, and the old backyard, garage hack stuff is done. Unfortunately, some upper management likes that backyard hack approach, it pretends to have less overhead (just like the money you save by not paying insurance!), in which case let go of it. Life is too short, and the change it never going to happen. When the customer complaint rolls in, and you have no data to show you were tracking the issue, just bend over and accept your product back. It's just the cost of doing business. Oh, by the way, and the 'quality person' you will suddenly get blamed for not having the data you were striving to collect. Update the resume. Another cost of doing business. And the band played on.
 

bobdoering

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

Bottom line, I believe that most (at least 90%) non-compliance is due to management weakness...
I agree. They are afraid to reinforce the responsibility of meeting the commitment to the duties of the job. Instead of leading, they are pandering - perhaps they don't want to hurt any feelings, or it is so hard to get someone else to do the job. And it usually starts from the top.
 
J

JaneB

Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

Any one, or some or all of us could be right. Or wrong.

I do not think we have enough information to know, or to make confident assertions that 'the problem is obvious' and that the solution must be X or Y or Z.

We have almost zero information about the problem. Yes, there's a problem. The "cause" proffered is that people 'seem to "forget"' (deliberate inverted commas) to fill out forms. And it is a recurrent problem. These are in the OP's posts.

But jumping from this to 'I know what the problem is and why it's occurring and we need to shoot first and forget any touchy/feely/encounter sessions'?? Huh?
:nope:
An interesting response, as is the amount of debate engendered. And not least in equating any kind of approach that seeks to find out why this repeated behaviour occurs as a waste of time/not required. Plus denigrating it with terms such as 'touchy/feely' or 'encounter sessions' - a very interesting take on people supervision/management, as well as root cause analysis - and providing increasingly far-fetched and inappropriate analogies (from war events or armed robbery) to setting up straw men and attacking those.

Accepting the provided data as effective problem analysis I consider about as likely to be as effective as accepting 'human error' as a definitive and accurate problem cause.
 

bobdoering

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Re: How do you handle missing information? People seem to "forget" to enter informati

We have almost zero information about the problem. Yes, there's a problem.
And the simple beauty is that the OP - or anyone else reading the thread, can figure out on their own - in their own environment - which of the many potential options we all have posed really will work for them. They may have the luxury of skipping the interim corrective action and go to a comprehensive root cause analysis. Or, they may not. Or - if they don't - they may believe the risk of continuing to not collect data until the problem can be fully reviewed is minimal - or not covered by a federal legal requirements (as it can be in some cases.) It is up to them.

At a minimum, they may be entertained by the "increasingly far-fetched and inappropriate analogies" (by some opinions) or the setting up straw men (like impossible to fill out forms, mentally inadequate employees or impossible data to collect) and the attack of them. Whatever. Debating claims of logical errors offered the least benefit to the thread - but we tolerate the need for some to ponder these things in addition to the actual issue.

I am sure most readers will take from the discourse that what they need. The problem analysis will not occur here - it may not even occur where the problem is. But, if it does, these thoughts may help develop their own plan of action. If we waited for every OP to spill every detail of their situation to begin discussion, this would be a pretty thin forum.
 
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