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A case study of tampering.
At Riverside Primary School 'Friday Sport' involves 200 children in Years 5 & 6 engaging in a range of sports matches with teams from several other schools. This involves the movement of teams to and from several locations around Launceston with coordination of travel and timelines: each bus carries a few teams to/from two or three locations.
The system works well. The Physical Education teacher initiates the operation
PE teacher
(1) schedules times, teams (inc. numbers), staff, buses and locations
(2) prints the schedule (1 page) and forwards it to Office
Then the Office staff
(2) Copy & distribute the schedule to teachers & classes
(4) Book the necessary buses to transport the teams
Teachers and students
(5) prepare for participation,
(6) organise equipment, uniforms...
Parents and other family members often attend matches to support their children
And so on.... however, one week ....
...the School was also having an evening Fair on the Friday, a social event and fund-raiser combined. So the Office staff were very busy with extra tasks.
The Physical Education teacher tried to be helpful but ended up tampering with the system. The PE teacher decided to copy and distribute the schedule to the teachers and classes concerned, thus saving the Office staff the effort and time involved in completing this particular task. This was certainly kind, thoughtful and very well intentioned.
However, no-one remembered to book the buses because
- the PE teacher didn't think to do it (he didn't do it any other week)
- the Office staff assumed the PE teacher had done it. Booking buses was usually combined with the copying and distributing of the schedule. The booking was done by faxing the schedule to the bus company which would then provide buses to suit (they managed the logistics involved and advised the school of the details)
And so when everyone was ready to move at 1.00 PM on the Friday... nothing happened!! And it was too late to retrieve the situation.
The results:
- After a short wait the bus company was contacted and after checking the oversight was revealed
- Approximately 400 students (the RPS teams and their opponents) missed out on sports matches that day
- The schools involved had to be contacted with explanations and apologies (an extra task at the most in-opportune time given that preparations for the Fair were at a peak
- After waiting around for some time several schools had to make ad hoc arrangements for the students concerned for the afternoon
- Teams from other schools that had already travelled to match locations only to discover that they had no matches to play
- Many parents attended matches that did not happen. Many parents had made special arrangements to attend, eg, flexed their lunch hours...
WARNING: Being helpful is a risky business!! It introduces variation into the process and may bring that whole process undone. That is the cost of tampering.