The cost of guessing
The cost of guessing
Work that came back, decisions that were escalated for nothing, and the quarter that produced both.
Decisions this page is about, and where the line actually was
Changing the wording on a customer-facing error message
4 → 1It had been yours all along
Refunding a customer under fifty pounds
3 → 1A written policy you had never been shown
Telling a customer a date
3 → 6Dates are committed by one person here
Reordering your own week
4 → 1You asked twice before believing the answer
- 1Decide it alone and say nothing
- 2Decide it alone and mention it afterwards
- 3Check with one colleague first
- 4Check with the person who assigned it
- 5Needs a decision one level up
- 6Cannot be decided here at all
four decisions · three of them you had more room than you thought · one gave you less · the median gap was three steps on the scale
Four of the nine decisions counted on this site.
What rework actually costs
Six pieces of work came back in a quarter, and every one of them went back because of something that could have been said in a sentence at the start.
Going back to the brief
A return to the brief is not rework. It is the discovery that the work answered a question nobody asked, and it discards everything built after it.
The guess that was right anyway
Most guesses about missing context turn out to be correct. That is the problem: a correct guess costs almost as much as a wrong one and teaches nobody anything.
Why the cost lands on one person
A minute saved by the person handing over becomes a quarter spent by the person receiving, and neither of them experiences the trade.
The invisible cost of not deciding
Work that comes back leaves a trace. Decisions that were escalated unnecessarily leave none, and there are more of them.
Waiting for permission you already had
The waiting and the rework have the same cause. In both, a fact that already existed somewhere failed to reach the person who needed it.
Counting the work that came back
A line per return, four fields, thirty seconds. What to record, what the record is for, and the two ways it goes wrong.
Rework is a symptom, not a failing
Work that comes back gets treated as a quality problem and answered with more review. The six returns counted here would all have survived more review.
The quarter, in numbers
All three records on one page: nine decisions, eight handovers, six returns. One person, one quarter, with what each number does and does not support.