Why Systems Fail LO10312

Dale Emery (72704.1550@CompuServe.COM)
03 Oct 96 14:51:09 EDT

Replying to LO10298 --

JC,

You wrote, "To me, a key indicator of an inadequate understanding (a lack
of intuition) is a tendency to 'tweak' a process ot activity because it
has deviated slightly from what was originally planned. This leads to
greater deviations in performance as each 'tweak' produces an increasing
reaction to earlier performance or results."

I have difficulty knowing when to tweak and when not to tweak. I get
caught between two kinds of mistakes. The first kind is the one you
mention, where my tweaking makes things worse. The other kind is failing
to deal with a "minor" deviation that turns out to be significant.

I generally trust organizations to heal themselves when minor (or even
major) deviations happen. I generally don't trust projects to heal
themselves when they start drifting away from their plans. I'm not sure
what it is that leads me to trust organizations and projects differently.
Perhaps it's that projects seem less "organic" to me than organizations.

How about the rest of you? In what cases do you trust the system to deal
with deviations from their plans? In what cases do you succumb to the
urge to tweak? What makes the difference between the cases?

Dale

--

Dale H. Emery | 27 Tall Pine Road Consultant | Berwick, ME 03901 Relationship and Communication | (207) 698-1650 For Successful Organizations | 72704.1550@compuserve.com

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>