That would seem closer to explaining to workers that a USB cable must be plugged in with the side that says top on the top. Which is not the same as designing the USB cable to only plug in if you have the top in the right orientation.

Granted this distinction might not be that great. I have just thought about the idea of applying mistake proofing thinking to problems (but not actually implementing counter-measures, other than awareness) that prevent mistakes. To me this seems like something less than actual poka-yoke.

You raise a good point. I suppose whether or not it’s “true” poka-yoke depends on whether the internal surveys and review are a routine and necessary part of the CEO’s annual review. If, for example, he had to submit the feedback to the board of directors each year and list his action steps based on that feedback, that would get a whole lot closer to true poka-yoke.

But no, it doesn’t actually prevent him from sucking, or treating his employees like dirt, or running the company into the ground. Given that humans have free will, my guess is that true human poka-yoke is impossible.

What do you think?

For management poka-yoke, you could design a system that didn’t allow a meeting to be scheduled until an agenda was posted (I can see doing that with software – of course people could just put in fake agenda stuff – but I can push in the USB cable the wrong way too). Of course that can create problems, I sometimes want to schedule a meeting and having set the details yet. But I am just trying to think how you could enforce less obvious (less physical often) poka-yoke solutions.

You could require things like an A3 report before x is done. Of course the A3 report could be done in a sloppy lame manner. I think the non-physical poka-yoke attempts do have challenges, sometimes I can imagine creating physical like (software…) bottlenecks… Which then could act as preventing certain types of mistakes…