SHIFT LOG COMPRESSION
The account of the shift is written by the person least able to write it.
01 DEFINITION
Condition in which the record of a period is composed at the end of it by someone whose capacity to judge what mattered has been consumed by the period itself.
02 CONDITIONS
UNCERTAINTY
UNRECORDED
What was left out of the record is not recoverable from the record.
TIME PRESSURE
SHORT
The writing happens at the end, against the wish to leave.
ERROR ASYMMETRY
DEFERRED
An omission costs nothing until someone needs what was omitted.
OPERATOR STATE
DEDICATED
The person writing is the person who did it and has nothing left over.
03 WHERE IT APPEARS
MEDICALNotes are written at the end of a shift by someone who has just worked one.
ENERGYThe control room log is completed by the operator handing over, at the point of handing over.
MANUFACTURINGProduction notes are entered after the run, by whoever ran it.
PUBLIC SERVICECase notes are written up at day's end by the officer who worked the day.
CONSTRUCTIONSite diaries are completed after the shift by people who were on it.
LOGISTICSException records are written at the end of a run by the person who drove it.
04 WHERE THIS IS SURFACING
This surfaces wherever the person who did the work also writes what happened. The writing is scheduled for when the work stops, which is when the writer is furthest from being able to do it.
What stays unresolved is when such a record can be made — writing throughout takes attention from the work being recorded, and writing at the end takes whatever is left of the writer.