Before You Redo It, Read This
If you’re constantly redoing your team’s work, you’re measuring the wrong thing.
The instinct when work comes back wrong is to figure out what went wrong with the person who did it. Were they not paying attention? Do they not care? Is this a performance issue?
Here’s the question I’ve learned to ask instead:
Instead of asking: “Why can’t they do quality work?”
Ask: “What wasn’t clear before the work started?”
Because rework is almost never a quality problem. It’s a clarity problem. Before the work came back wrong, something broke down — and it usually looks like one of these:
✓ Was success clearly defined?
✓ Did they know what “done” looked like?
✓ Were priorities competing without anyone knowing?
✓ Did they have permission to make decisions along the way?
Rework is usually a symptom of unclear expectations — not low capability. When it becomes a pattern on your team, it’s a diagnostic signal. Something in how work gets assigned is consistently breaking down at the source.
Great leaders diagnose before they fix. The fix isn’t more oversight — it’s better setup before the work begins.
Development Resource
Accountability Assessment
Uncover where expectations are breaking down before work starts — not after it comes back wrong. The assessment identifies the specific gaps that create rework, so you can address them at the root.