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Procedure: Double and triple check opportunities built into everything. If a mistake gets by once, you've probably got two other opportunities to easily catch the error, simply by paying attention. No extra effort or time - just awareness and watching for mismatch.
Example furthered: Order is pulled to shipping station with a mistake, double checked and packed yet mistake gets through again. A large order (over X number of items) requires a double entry check and it gets by both.
The person is a good, dedicated employee, with a good record; not prone to mistakes, much less letting them get all the way through shipment, and would always be mortified at the thought that it happened to them.
Of course it happens to everyone from time to time, no matter how experienced, no matter if they know every trick in the book (plus a few that aren't). Yet, some people are especially prone to seeing what they think they should see - not what is really there.
There's got to be a name for this phenomenon; regardless of whether for people vulnerable to it or those who are not. What is it?
During my time as a bank clerk in the days of batch input it was a standing rule that printouts were checked by somebody other than the person who completed the input forms for that very reason.
Expectation-based perception?
Okay, that's a phrase, not a word. Can someone come up with a better one?
mis-percept-expectate
[edited by: lawman at 5:10 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2008]
[edit reason] No Politics Please [/edit]
Expectation-based perception?
A very good description. That is exactly what is happening.
I have seen it in so many places, under so many conditions, (done it myself enough times - though my personal procedures don't let much get by - my rate is about as good as it gets - but not perfect), that it just struck me that some study or think-tank has looked at this and given it name (phrase more likely than a word)
And I'm not talking about people that just don't care or are stupid - but sharp people that care deeply and work hard to avoid such things.
For example last week I helped with packing parcels because an employee was ill. The last item on the packing slip most of the time was "shipping-fees". However in between there were always some orders that had crossed the threshold for free shipping. After some time I started to ignore the last item on the packing slips because I expected them to be shipping fees. Easy to guess what happened: On half of the orders without shipping fees, the last item was missing. I was lucky someone else noticed and we could check all the parcels again.
Now I have changed the packing slips, so the shipping fees do not show up anymore.
I have noticed that most mistakes in shipping are based on this phenomenon. For example: Customer oders four items. Three of the items are in the same shelf in the rack. No. 4-5-3 (Rack 4, Shelf 5, Item 3), 4-5-9, 4-5-10 and then: 4-6-12. What happens? Customer gets item 4-5-12 by mistake.
