Thomas Lunde wrote:
>
> Please accept this as a continuation to my response to Eva Durants
> question about my seeming avoidance of the question "who is going to
> pay?". This quote is from another list I monitor, posted by a Mr.
> John McLaren.
>
> This put me in mind of a story in one of the books on my musty
> shelves. Took me a minute to find it ... [url is The Project
> Manager's Desk Reference by James P. Lewis, p. 25].
>
> -------Quoted text begins-------
>
> Insistence on writing a problem statement is usually met with
> skepticism, the reaction being, "We all know what the problem
> is. Let's get on with it.
[snip]
Bravo!
Early in my work life, I was a computer "systems programmer".
Part of my job was to solve all the problems everybody else had
with "the computer" that they themselves could not solve (or,
if I could not solve the problem myself, to determine that the
problem "belonged" to IBM and hand it off to "Big Blue"...).
Frequently, the person experiencing difficulty would tell me
"what the problem is". They were frequently wrong. I early
re-invented the following wheel, as my guiding principle (I'm
sure every physician learns it early, too):
The problem [as] stated is not the problem.
Rather, the "problem statement" is potentially valuable
diagnostic information *about* the problem (i.e., usually
"just" one more symptom of it --> where, by "just", I do not
mean to denigrate its evidentiary but only its "logical"
worth, for, as Enrico Fermi said somewhere, had he paid more
attention to a certain little spot on one cloud chamber
photograph in 1930, he could have made a certain major
discovery which, in fact, he accomplished only a
decade later...)....
Another story about "efficiency experts": At one time
Ford Motor Co. [I think it was...] hired an efficiency expert
to make things more efficient (what else?). The expert
reported back to upper mgmt about one guy who was
sitting in his office with his feet up on his desk,
not doing much of anything. Mgmt was smart enough in
this particular case to tell the expert to leave that man
alone, because he had once had an idea which saved the
company a *lot* of money, and he had the idea doing precisely
what the efficiency expert had found him doing.
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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