The reflex
A difficulty has just happened. The team is considering adding a rule to stop it coming back, without having compared the possible responses yet.
The builder’s reflex
Examine the risk to handle, the information available, and the cost of the options. Repetition informs that choice, but does not decide it alone.
Why
A rule can protect a service, help a beginner, or make an agreement explicit. It also takes effort every time it is used, and has to stay suited to the context. What matters is choosing a proportionate protection, not defending or refusing process on principle.
One occurrence can be enough to justify acting if the consequences are serious. It can even make sense to guard against a risk before any incident. For a limited nuisance that is still poorly understood, watching a few cases may be better than immediately imposing the same procedure on everyone. No threshold of three occurrences replaces that judgement.
At a workshop, a piece of equipment is missing at opening time. Depending on the context, a preparation list, a spare, a clarified handover, or a one-off check may help. Adding a signature every time equipment moves is not automatically the best answer. You have to understand what was missing and who would carry the new load.
Compare the effects on other people too: extra time, harder access, ambiguity, or work moved elsewhere. A useful protection can cost time without being useless. Have its reason stated, and the conditions under which it could change. If a provisional measure is needed before the analysis ends, say it is provisional and who will revisit it.
Try this
On a proposed rule, ask three questions: which risk does it handle, what other responses are possible, and what will it ask of the people applying it?
With the people concerned, choose a suitable scope and a review point. If you have no authority to change the rule, prepare those elements for a ruling rather than working around it.
At the review, examine whether the protection works and whether its cost is still justified. No incidents does not on its own prove the rule useless. Decide to keep it, adjust it, or drop it on evidence solid enough to stand on.
From where you sit
- Operations: compare the protection sought to the load created.
- Product: examine the effect of a rule on access to the service too.
- Management: name the reason, the owner, and the conditions for revisiting.
- Recruiting: check what an interview step actually lets you assess.
To discuss
Which proposed rule deserves a bounded trial, and which risk needs a protection right now?