01 / Memory
Answers are kept. Results never return.
Most systems keep only the question and the answer. What was decided with it, and what happened next? Keep it all in one record.
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Remember the result too.
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01It answered 94%.
In the management meeting the agent gave last month's on-time delivery rate. The record keeps the question and the answer, nothing more.
What was decided on that answer, and what came of it, is written nowhere.
02One piece of work, five records.
The question, the definition the answer used, the answer, the decision taken on it, and what happened next. Scattered records are gathered as one piece of work.
- R-01 · Question“What was last month's on-time delivery rate?”
- R-02 · DefinitionCounted against the factory's promised dates
- R-03 · Answer94%
- R-04 · DecisionTake a large order with a tight delivery date
- R-05 · ResultPart of the order missed the customer's requested dates
03Join the records in the order of the work.
From the question to the definition, the answer, the decision and the result. In most systems the line from decision to result is missing, and nothing leads from the result back to the question.
- L-01 · Question → definitionR-01 · “What was last month's on-time delivery rate?”
- L-02 · Definition → answerR-02 · Counted against the factory's promised dates
- L-03 · Answer → decisionR-03 · 94%
- L-04 · Decision → resultR-04 · Take a large order with a tight delivery dateusually missing
04And then what happened?
Open the result of the order and join it back to the question.
Part of the order missed the customer's requested dates
The customer asked by their requested dates; the answer counted by the factory's promised dates.
Counted by the customer's dates, the month was 79%.
Correction (head of sales): answer this question by the customer's requested dates.
The result has reached the question. The loop is closed.
05A memory that knows the result becomes the basis for verification.
The closed loop is now one memory: the next time the same question comes, it knows which definition to answer with. That memory goes to verification.
The result is still closed, so the loop is still open. Open it first
Only when the result comes back does the next piece of work improve.
Keeping questions and answers does not make a system better. Keep the action, the decision, the result and the correction as one record, and design the path the result comes back by from the start.
A fictional example with one question and one decision. In real work results take time to come back, and records break along the way.