🎯 Quick Answer
What: People follow a process when the right way is also the easy way. When the right way takes more walking, more time or more looking up than a shortcut, people use the shortcut on a busy day.
Why it matters: Most teams answer a skipped step with a reminder. A reminder helps for a week or two. Once the busy days return, people use the shortcut again.
How to get people to follow a process: Do the job yourself, the new way. Ask why people use each shortcut. Put what the step needs where the step is done. Make the form match the work. Change the default. Make parts and tools fit only the right way. Then remove the old way.
The payoff: A process people follow on a busy day, without being reminded, because it is the easiest way to get the work done.
Once a fix has been tried small and adjusted, it goes to every line. Then comes a harder question. Will people use it on a busy day, when nobody is checking?
Most teams answer with reminders. A sign, an email, a talk at the start of the shift. Those help for a while. Then people go back to the old way.
There is a better answer. Make the right way the easy way. When the correct step is also the easiest step, people use it without being asked.
This article covers why people do not follow a process, how to get people to follow a process in seven steps, and what leaders can do. It includes an example from a maintenance team and a field story about a shelf that nobody was supposed to use.
Why people do not follow a process
People at work are busy. They take the way that gets the job done with the least effort. That is not a problem with the people. It is how almost everyone works when time is short.
So when a step is skipped, look at the step first. Ask how it compares with the shortcut:
Distance: Is the step done far from where the work happens?
Time: Does the step take longer than the shortcut?
Information: Does it ask for something people have to go and look up?
Starting point: Does the form, screen or machine start on the old setting?
The old way: Are the old instructions, tools or forms still in reach?
If the answer to any of these is yes, people will use the shortcut on busy days. Reminders and training help for a while. They do not change how much effort the step takes.
How to get people to follow a process
Here is how to get people to follow a process in seven steps. They work for a new process, and for an old one that people have stopped following.
Step 1: Do the job yourself, the new way
Do the job the new way for at least an hour. Work at normal speed, with the normal interruptions. Write down every extra walk, every wait and every time you have to look something up.
This is the fastest way to find what makes the right way hard. The people who do the job every day already know. Doing it yourself shows you what they know.
Step 2: Ask why people use each shortcut
Most shortcuts are easy to find. A whiteboard next to the official form. A shelf where nothing is supposed to be kept. A copy of the instructions with notes written on it.
Each one has a reason. Ask the people who use it: "Why do you do it this way?" Write down every answer. Then fix the reason, not the shortcut.
Step 3: Put what the step needs where the step is done
Tools, parts, forms and information should be at the place the step happens. Every walk to get something is time the shortcut does not need. Walking and waiting are two of the eight wastes for this reason.
If a step needs a scanner, a gauge or a computer, put one at the place of work. If that is too costly, move the step closer to where the thing already is.
Step 4: Make the form match the work
Many forms ask for more than the person can know at that moment. Remove every field that is not used. Put the rest in the order the work happens. Offer a short list of choices instead of a blank box where you can.
A good test: can someone fill in the form at the place the work ends, in about a minute, without looking anything up?
Step 5: Change the default
Most people keep whatever a form, a screen or a machine starts with. So the starting setting is what happens most of the time.
Look for the defaults in your process. The setting a machine starts on when it is switched on. The first choice in a drop-down list. The template that opens for a new job. The tool or part kept closest to the work. Make each one the right way.
Step 6: Make parts and tools fit only the right way
Where a part or tool can go in two ways and only one is right, change it so it fits only the right way. A pin in a fixture so a part can only be loaded the right way round. A connector that only plugs in one way. Bins that hold only the right part.
When the right way is the only way that fits, nobody has to remember it.
Step 7: Remove the old way
During a pilot, the old way stays ready to use. Once the change goes everywhere, remove the old way.
Collect old copies of instructions, including the ones taped inside cabinet doors. Remove old forms from drawers and shared folders. Change saved settings in machines and systems. Take away old tools that do the job the old way. If the old way is still in front of people, many of them will use it.
An example: the repair log
A maintenance team was asked to log every repair in the plant's system. Here is how logging a repair compared with the shortcut the team used instead:
The repair log: twenty-two fields, on a computer in the office at the other end of the building. About ten minutes per repair. It asked for part numbers and codes that had to be looked up.
The shortcut: a whiteboard next to the shop bench. One line per repair. About thirty seconds. It asked for nothing the tech did not already know.
Most repairs went on the whiteboard. The system was filled in at the end of the week, from memory, or not at all.
The team tried reminders first. Logging went up for a week, then back down.
Then the team changed the log itself:
Five fields instead of twenty-two, in the order the repair happens.
Most answers picked from a short list, with common parts and codes already in it.
A tablet on the wall next to the shop bench.
Logging a repair now took about a minute, in the place the repair ended. The whiteboard came down. Most repairs were logged the same day.
Nobody was asked to try harder. The right way became the easy way.
Every shortcut has a reason
Here is a field story about Step 2: asking why people use a shortcut before telling them to stop.
One plant had a problem with its parts counts. The system said a part was in stock, and the storeroom shelf was empty. Or the other way around.
Part of the cause was simple. The rule said unused parts go back to the storeroom and get scanned back in. Many did not. They went on a shelf near the line, and the next shift used them.
The first answer was a reminder. A sign, and a talk at the start of each shift. Two weeks later, the shelf near the line was full again.
Then a team member asked a different question. Why do people use the shelf?
The answers were plain. The storeroom was at the far end of the building. It was closed on night shift. And scanning a part back in meant waiting for the storeroom clerk.
The shelf was the easy way. The storeroom was the hard way.
So the team made the right way easier than the shelf. A return bin went next to the line. The storeroom emptied it every morning and scanned the parts in. The shelf near the line was taken down.
Within a month, every shift was using the bin, and the counts started to match.
An example: the ordering screen
One plant's parts-ordering screen had express shipping selected unless someone changed it. Few people did. For months, the plant paid for express freight on parts that were not needed in a hurry.
The fix took a few minutes. Standard shipping became the starting choice. Express stayed one click away for real rushes. Nobody had to remember anything new.
What leaders can do
When a new process is not followed, the first reaction is often another reminder. A leader can do more.
Do the job yourself, the new way, for one hour, before asking why others do not.
Ask what makes the right way harder than the shortcut, and write down every answer.
Treat a skipped step as information about the step. It shows where the process needs work.
Fix the hardest step first, then do the job again.
Send a reminder only after the right way is the easy way. A reminder works best when the right way is already easy.
After the change
A process change has the best chance of lasting when three things are true. It removes the cause of the problem, which is how the fix was chosen. It was tried small and adjusted to real work. And the right way is the easy way.
In DMAIC, the step-by-step method used in Lean Six Sigma, this is the end of the Improve phase. Control comes next: measuring the new way over time and making it the standard way of working, so the gain lasts after the project ends.
I write one of these every week, based on what actually happens on projects rather than what the textbook says should happen. You can join the newsletter here.
FAQ
Why do people not follow a process?
Usually because the process is harder than a shortcut. The right way may be far from the work, take longer, ask for information people have to look up, or start on the old setting. On a busy day, people use the way that gets the job done with the least effort.
How do you get people to follow a new process?
Make the right way the easy way. Do the job yourself to find what makes it hard. Ask why people use each shortcut. Put what the step needs where the step is done, make the form match the work, change the default, make parts and tools fit only the right way, and remove the old way.
Do reminders work?
For a while. A reminder can raise the use of a process for a week or two, but it does not change how much effort the step takes. Once the busy days return, people use the shortcut again. A reminder works best after the right way has been made easy.
What is a default in a process?
A default is what happens when nobody changes anything: the setting a machine starts on, the first choice in a list, the template that opens for a new job. Most people keep the default, so making the default the right way is one of the easiest changes to make.
What should you do with the old way after a change?
Remove it once the change goes everywhere. Collect old instructions, take old forms out of drawers and shared folders, change saved settings in machines and systems, and take away tools that do the job the old way. Keep the old way ready only during a pilot.
When the right way is the easy way, people use it.
