SELECTIVE COMPLIANCE
The steps that are believed in get done. The record shows all of them done.
01 DEFINITION
Condition in which a required sequence is worked through in the parts people judge to matter and passed through in the rest, while the record the system keeps registers the sequence as completed either way.
02 CONDITIONS
UNCERTAINTY
UNRECORDED
What was actually done is not what the record holds.
TIME PRESSURE
SHORT
The skipping happens because the sequence is long and the work is waiting.
ERROR ASYMMETRY
DEFERRED
A skipped step costs nothing until the occasion it existed for.
OPERATOR STATE
DEDICATED
The person is working the sequence and deciding which parts of it are real.
03 WHERE IT APPEARS
MEDICALChecklist steps judged unnecessary are marked without being done and the record shows completion.
MANUFACTURINGSetup steps long known to be redundant are signed off rather than performed.
CONSTRUCTIONPermit checks are recorded as done at the level of the permit, not the check.
ENERGYProcedural steps are worked selectively by experienced crews and logged in full.
PUBLIC SERVICEProcess stages are marked complete where the officer judged them not to apply.
LOGISTICSInspection points are confirmed at the consignment level rather than the point level.
04 WHERE THIS IS SURFACING
This surfaces wherever compliance is recorded step by step rather than observed. The steps that get skipped are the ones long experience says are unnecessary, and long experience is sometimes right.
The question it keeps returning to is what the record is for — one that captures what was actually done is one people shape their doing around, and one that captures only completion is a record of nothing.