# The shortcut everyone takes is the real process
Systems · diagnostic · https://build-here.africa/book/chapters/07-05-the-shortcut-everyone-takes-is-the-real-process.html

## The symptom

The real work does not follow the procedure. People go through a message, a file, or a check of their own to get to the result.

## The signal

The shortcut everyone takes is the real process. Look at it before you restate the rule.

## What's going on

When everyone works around a step, the written procedure no longer describes the work. Restating the rule will change nothing: the shortcut exists because it solves something.

Requests arrive by direct message rather than through the intended form. The form is hard to open on a phone. The message works, but leaves out information the next person needs. Both facts count.

Two possible answers: bring the procedure in line with the shortcut, or fix the shortcut. Often it is a bit of both: a form that works on a phone, or a standard message that carries the missing information.

Ask people why they work around it, without looking for someone to blame. They will tell you what the procedure misses.

## Check this

Take a recent case and compare the intended steps to the real ones. Note what each produces, and for whom.

Propose a change with the people who do the work and the people who depend on it. Try it, then update the procedure so it describes what really happens.

## To discuss

Which shortcut do we all take that the procedure does not know about?