What Starbucks would really like is simply to be able to say "make a latte this way every single time", and have thousands of baristas hop to." But anyone who has ever managed employees knows that this isn't quite so easy as it sounds. Even with the cleverest and most motivated employees, little changes will creep in over time; when I was a canvass field manager for PIRG, I was always a little astonished to find the varied ways that people had modified the standard "rap" they were supposed to give at each door, often without even realizing that they'd gone off script. This is why Atul Gawande is so gung-ho on making doctors hew to checklists and hard-to-modify standardized procedures.

via Starbucks Puts Quality Over Quantity - Megan McArdle - Business - The Atlantic.