A correction needs somewhere to go

Correcting a mistaken fact in its original record does not correct every decision made from it. A colleague may still have the old comparison, a customer may have received a promise, and a forecast may still expect money on the wrong date.

Find the current work that still uses the error. Some current plans need changing. Some completed decisions need a dated explanation of what was wrong. Other documents may have no bearing on either. A useful correction distinguishes them.

Dispatch became arrival.

Consider an invented furniture workshop. On Monday, June 7, 2027, a supplier confirms that fabric will be dispatched on Monday, June 14, with arrival expected on Thursday, June 17. The workshop’s order tracker mistakenly records June 14 as the arrival date.

The job needs two full working days after the fabric is received, and the customer can collect the following day. For this schedule the workshop works Monday through Friday, with no closures during these weeks. The plan made on June 8 therefore assigns the work to Tuesday and Wednesday, June 15 and 16, and confirms collection with the customer for Thursday, June 17.

On Friday, June 11, a colleague checks the supplier’s original message and finds the mistake. The supplier has not moved the delivery. The workshop confused a dispatch date with an arrival date. That distinction belongs in the correction, especially when explaining the problem to the customer.

If the fabric arrives on Thursday, June 17, two full working days afterward are Friday, June 18, and Monday, June 21. Tuesday, June 22, would be a possible collection date only if those work slots are available and the customer accepts the revised arrangement. It has not become the agreed date merely because it fits the corrected calendar.

Find the people who still have the old answer.

The order tracker is the first place to correct. Add the right meaning of each date and a link to the supplier’s confirmation. Then follow where the mistaken arrival date was used.

Where the dispatch/arrival correction changes current work

Scroll across to see every column. Use the arrow keys when the table is focused.

Those are four consequences of one error. Fixing the tracker has not completed them. Nor does sending everybody the supplier’s email establish that their current work has changed.

The original plan may also have been copied into a comparison or a manager’s meeting notes. Look for the live use: someone about to confirm a date, allocate staff or authorize a payment. That is more urgent than polishing a closed presentation nobody will use again.

Keep the old decision understandable.

The June 8 decision should not be rewritten to suggest it was made using the correct arrival date. Keep the original account of what was decided and add the June 11 correction beside it. Connect that note to the replacement plan when a new decision is made.

This preserves an important distinction. A future reader can see why the original schedule looked possible and how the mistake entered it. The reader can also see what the company did after learning better. Deleting the old basis would make the history look more sensible while making the next review less informative.

The current production board serves a different purpose. It should show the work people are now expected to do. Preserving history does not mean leaving a known bad date active where the team will rely on it. Keep the old decision identifiable; make the current instruction clear.

In A Company That Can Think, Vijay Sheth asks for the same continuity between a corrected input and the reports or decisions that used it. The book’s concern is whether the next person receives the current choice and its basis. It does not call for every old document to be rewritten whenever anything changes.

Finish the correction with the next user.

For the workshop, the order lead can coordinate a short correction note on June 11. It would identify the dispatch/arrival error, link the supplier’s message and name the old June 17 collection promise. It would also show the separate open questions: which production slots are available, what the customer will accept and when the balance payment can be expected.

The scheduler needs to confirm the new slot. The customer contact needs to record the customer’s response. The person maintaining the forecast needs the resulting payment assumption. The order lead can then connect those answers to one current plan, rather than leave three people making different repairs to the same mistake.

A read receipt or an acknowledgment is not enough to establish that a consequential correction has reached the work. Check the next use. Does the production board show the agreed slot? Does the customer confirmation use the arrangement actually accepted? Does the forecast distinguish that arrangement from a payment already received?

Keep the effort proportionate. A spelling correction in the title of a closed internal summary may need no wider action. A corrected date controlling tomorrow’s delivery does. Trace the decisions the changed fact could alter, rather than demanding a fresh version of every file that happens to mention the subject.

Until the workshop has an agreed collection arrangement, it still has a customer promise to resolve. A corrected arrival date is the start of that work.