Part of the Program Leadership school. Class 2 of 6.
The capability: you can tell what a variance is telling you before investigating it.
Prerequisites: Modules 5, 53, 54.
The practice
Confirm the variance exists. One method, one person, one time — because inconsistent counting produces phantom numbers.
Then analyze by category rather than in aggregate.
Then check the spouts. Two minutes.
Then run the free-pour test, framed as calibration.
And audit the comp and remake recording for a week.
The reference
The graduated cylinder, and the previous period's count taken the same way.
What you are building
The habit of reading location before assigning cause.
A variance isolated to the well points at the free-poured category — the one with no measurement on it, per Module 53. That is a mechanical finding rather than a moral one.
And theft belongs last — not because it never happens, but because the mechanical explanations are cheaper to test, more likely to be true, and starting with suspicion damages a bar that probably has a spout problem.
Verification and boundary
The category analysis and the pour test spread.
Boundary: any investigation touching an employee's conduct belongs with a licensed attorney.