They fail because technicians don't believe their actions will be supported.

Imagine you have to travel 30 km to a facility where the refrigerator has failed. Before you can go, you need a transport allowance, and approval takes several layers of sign-off. The road is bad, so the trip takes three hours instead of one. You fixed this same refrigerator last month, and that took your whole day. Now it's broken again, because the part for a durable fix wasn't available. You know a patch-up job only goes so far. But what can you do?

In our work with Wendy Prosser, we have learned a lot about the human behavior that makes or breaks a supply chain. One finding stands out: whether staff believe the system will respond when they act (what we call predictability) explained more than twice as much of the variation in reliable outcomes as skill or motivation did.

That makes us optimistic, because predictability is something designers, administrators, managers, logisticians and technicians can all build.

Designing for the Technician is a 6-week applied online course that brings frontline staff and the administrators who make decisions about their systems into the same conversation. You'll work on a real challenge from your own workplace, from equipment maintenance to resupply and requisitioning, and finish with an intervention design and a 30-day implementation plan.

📅 Starts Friday, October 16 | Fridays, 2–4 pm GMT / 3–5 pm WAT
🎓 Certificate on completion

Course Registration Link: https://form.typeform.com/to/PpBEaiwT