Fix-It-Once^® - Basic Components

Learning from experience has never been easy or cheap.  You must make problems pay for themselves.  Fix-It-Once® is an efficient cause determination method that shrinks the likelihood of the same failure happening again.  Its real power, however, comes from strengthening your defenses.  Sooner or later similar - or worse - consequences will occur unless you act on what you learn.  

Fix-It-Once® organizes your problem assessment, highlights your most serious vulnerabilities, and may not require "solving" the original problem at all.

Click HERE to view the simple Fix-It-Once^® chart.   

1 - UNACCEPTABLE CONSEQUENCES ("Problem") 

Acknowledge every impact, no matter how disastrous or embarrassing.  Waste no time with the spin doctor.  Without total honesty, Fix-It-Once® cannot work.  Write the problem down!

2 - CAUSE ("Trigger")

Equipment Failure Mechanism  If hardware has failed, explain precisely how the breakdown happened.  Understand the failure mechanism and the environment in which it developed.  Be systematic.  Dig hard.

Human Action or Inaction  If human performance preceded the consequences, explain how the work environment took advantage of human fallibility and created a pathway for failure.

3 - PERMISSIVES ("Flawed Defenses")

Preemption   Assess the adequacy of your defenses against trouble, starting close to the issue and expanding outward, until you are confident the risks are under control.

Support Network  Pinpoint flaws in the immediate circle of resources, information, and direction that allowed equipment reliability to suffer or job performers to fail.

Knowledge and Experience  No problem is entirely new.  Learn who had the solution already and why that expertise never made it to the table.  Exploit powerful sources of free information.

Risk Anticipation  Evaluate the thinking behind priorities and decisions that determined the outcome of the error or failure, before it ever happened.

Mitigation Learn what was half-hearted, slow, or misguided about the organization's response when adverse conditions began to appear.  Assess your preparedness for managing trouble.

 

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