When correction exceeds 20% of weekly capacity, shift…

When This Fires

• When tracking correction time (Multiply direct correction time by 3x for true cost…) reveals that correction exceeds 20% of domain capacity
• When "firefighting" has become a significant part of your work routine
• When process improvement feels less urgent than the corrections demanding attention right now
• When the same error types keep recurring despite effective correction procedures

Common Failure Mode

Investing in faster correction instead of prevention: "Let's build a tool to fix this error faster." If the error occurs 10 times a week, reducing fix time from 30 to 15 minutes saves 2.5 hours weekly. Preventing 7 of the 10 occurrences saves 3.5 hours weekly (at the original fix time) and the savings grow if the prevention improves further. At >20% correction load, prevention ROI exceeds correction-speed ROI in almost all cases.

The Protocol

(1) Track correction time for one month using Multiply direct correction time by 3x for true cost…'s 3x multiplier. Calculate: what percentage of weekly capacity does correction consume? (2) If <20% → continue with correction-based approaches. Optimize individual correction procedures. (3) If ≥20% → shift investment to prevention. For the top 3 error types by correction time: identify the upstream cause (Classify errors as execution, knowledge, or judgment…, A true root cause, eliminated, makes the error impossible…) and design structural prevention (Recurring errors with the same root cause need structural…). (4) The prevention investment will temporarily increase total time spent (correction continues while prevention is being built). Accept this short-term cost — the long-term reduction in error generation rate will more than compensate. (5) After prevention deployment, re-measure correction percentage. If still ≥20% → the prevention didn't address the right causes. Re-diagnose.