Forum Home
PC World Chat
Thread ID: 134214	2013-06-11 09:12:00	Human errors more common in large departments?	coldot (6847)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1345384	2013-06-11 09:12:00	I just read this: www.radionz.co.nz Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says she believes the mistake was made in human error, which she accepts can happen in such a large department. (www.radionz.co.nz) I am confused as to why a human error is more likely to happen in a large department. Does that mean if all the work was distributed to individuals each working from their home office then "human errors" wouldn't occur? Or is there something in the atmosphere of a large department that brigs on human errors? Perhaps it's a common failing in open-plan offices?	coldot (6847)
1345385	2013-06-11 09:31:00	I would presume it's simply meaning that, whatever the % chance for a person to make an error is, leads to a higher number of occurrences given a larger number of people. Let's say there's a 1% chance per person-hour of a mistake. In a 5-person office, that's about 1 mistake for every 20 hours worked. In a 50 person office, it's a mistake every 2 hours.	inphinity (7274)
1345386	2013-06-11 09:50:00	In addition to what imphinity said, bigger departments = more info passing through them and out to other people = more chance of something going wrong.	Nick G (16709)
1345387	2013-06-11 10:45:00	You're making good case for decentralising government departments!	coldot (6847)
1345388	2013-06-11 10:45:00	.	coldot (6847)
1345389	2013-06-11 21:18:00	You're making good case for decentralising government departments! Well, then more departments = more sharing between departments = more mistakes :p However you look at it, the more information you have coming through all departments, the more mistakes you'll likely get. Making more, smaller departments wouldn't reduce the number of total mistakes made; it would reduce each departments risk of making a mistake, but due to the larger number of departments, the number of total mistakes would by unlikely to change.	Nick G (16709)
1345390	2013-06-12 00:50:00	Your own comment is at odds with what the Minister actually said. At no stage did she say "more likely to happen" which is your interpretation. Read more carefully.	Richard (739)
1345391	2013-06-12 01:37:00	When you consider the caliber of some of the people who work in the public service I'm not surprized there isn't more of this sort of thing going on ... Maybe there is but we don't hear about it..	paulw (1826)
1345392	2013-06-12 01:42:00	Your own comment is at odds with what the Minister actually said. At no stage did she say "more likely to happen" which is your interpretation. Read more carefully. Well, 'more likely to happen' is correct, whether she said it or not. More people, more chance for mistakes.	Nick G (16709)
1345393	2013-06-12 10:42:00	I wonder if the email was cc'd to her, i.e. her name not removed from a large list. I have known managers in a very large NZ corporate company to do that. They may have dozens of email addresses in different groups. Send out to different groups (e.g. sales, marketing, regional managers, account mangers, QC staff, etc), but forgetting to exclude certain groups or names (usually junior, temp, unbecoming conduct, or new staff) when the email is sent.	kahawai chaser (3545)
1 2