Team Error

Team error refers to mistakes that occur in collaborative settings where multiple people work together on a shared task, and describes how the interdependence built into teamwork can itself increase the likelihood of human error through its interaction with other, seemingly independent safeguards meant to catch mistakes. Simply having more than one person involved in a task does not by itself guarantee the task will be completed correctly; the core pattern is that when one or more team members make a mistake, that mistake can go on to enable other members of the same group to make errors of their own, producing a cascading failure that spreads through the team rather than staying isolated to the person who erred first.