Little Lesson, Big Lesson...What do you learn from your "mistakes?"

[The_Liquid_Laser]

ygolo, I just want to clarify that my last several posts have not been in response to the OP but to this:

The question is most relavent when a group of people make a mistake collectively, and all of them point to different reasons that things went wrong.

My reasoning is simple. When one thing goes wrong then the person who committed the mistake is responsible. When the whole group commits a mistake collectively then the leader is responsible. The leader by definition is responsible for the group he leads.

Most of the bugs we uncover are very subtle, and intricate. To say that some "big-picture" person should take care of such things is preposterous in my mind. The bugs however, show-up heavily in the "seams" (and there are always seems no matter how many "liasons" you add). Certainly shifting resources to reduce where bugs come from is within the scope of a manager or "leader," but closing the "seams" between the part I own and the parts that other people own is my responsibility.

This doesn't sound like the whole group making a mistake collectively. The "seams" is basically a breakdown in communication between two parties. There should be some type of communication between the two groups to smooth over the "seams" though.

 

[reason]

The Architects understand the architecture, the microarchtiects understand the microarchitecture, the RTL folks understand the RTL, the circuit designers understand the circuits, the package designers understand the package, Signal Integrity people understand the PC board interactions, the test folks understand the testing, the device engineers understand the device physics, the manufacturing people understand the manufacturing, the firmware people understand the firmware, the software people understand the software, the automation people understand the automation, the lithography people understand the lithography, and on and on.

The "leader" understands how to organise and motivate each of these people to do their job. If there is a mistake then the leader may hold a member of his team responsible and then revise the organisation of the team, perhaps firing an employee, assigning them to a different task, or teaching them how to avoid repeating the error. However, in the same way the bosses of the "leader" may decide to fire him, assign him to another task, or teach him how to avoid repeating errors when the leader continually fails to organise and motivate his team to perform well. If the "leader" has no bosses then the prospect of losses or bankruptcy will mean that a "leader" who does not learn from his errors will lose money and not be in business for very long.

However, analogous to the problem of theory-ladennes, it is not necessarily obvious who or what is responsible for an error, and so a "leader" has a difficult job when deciding to revise the organisation of his team. In the end it may even be the "leader" himself who is responsible for the error, and a more fundamental revision to the organisation is necessary. If a "leader" fails continually then he may eventually be fired or go out of business himself. Thus the profit-loss system performs a selection procedure analogous to that which reproductive success performs in natural selection, eliminating the mistakes and preserving that which works.

 

[ygolo]

ygolo, I just want to clarify that my last several posts have not been in response to the OP but to this:


My reasoning is simple. When one thing goes wrong then the person who committed the mistake is responsible. When the whole group commits a mistake collectively then the leader is responsible. The leader by definition is responsible for the group he leads.



This doesn't sound like the whole group making a mistake collectively. The "seams" is basically a breakdown in communication between two parties. There should be some type of communication between the two groups to smooth over the "seams" though.

OK, I can see where you are comming from.

I guess, "making a mistake collectively" is hard to intepret. In the situations I had in mind, people have "it's someone elses problem" mentalities despite the fact that the consequenses affect all of them (though usually quite indierectly). So often, the problem ends up being noones problem.

Maybe you use a credit union, but if you use one of the big banks (Bank of Ameirca in particular) you will likely see the "collective mistakes" that the banks (and the customers involved) make. You could say it is the CEOs fault, but as long as we keep banking with them, we are partly at fault for putting up with crappy service.

It's funny, I read somewhere, that EP and IJ types like to have particular people in charge of solvng problems, while EJs, and IPs like to have systems that remove the issue. I think both are important. I didn't pay much attention at the time, but I wonder if it points to the particular mentality towards problem solving in general.

I take my definition of a problem, from Are Your Lights On?,

A problem is a difference between what you percieve and what you desire.​

It is your problem, and often yours alone. To make it someone elses problem, you need to bring up a difference between what they percieve and what they desire.

That make a lot of sense to my IP brain, how does it sound to you?

However, analogous to the problem of theory-ladennes, it is not necessarily obvious who or what is responsible for an error, and so a "leader" has a difficult job when deciding to revise the organisation of his team. In the end it may even be the "leader" himself who is responsible for the error, and a more fundamental revision to the organisation is necessary. If a "leader" fails continually then he may eventually be fired or go out of business himself. Thus the profit-loss system performs a selection procedure analogous to that which reproductive success performs in natural selection, eliminating the mistakes and preserving that which works.

Yes. I can think of many situations like this. Whether is is Natural Law, or social/financial consequences...ultimately it are these forces/principles that are in-charge/responsible.

[youtube=Knu14TlvCQE]Reminds me of this commercial[/youtube]

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

Jennifer,

I was careful to qualify my statement about natural selection with the words 'too often' -- my preemptive nudge toward the objection which you offer. However, even so, natural selection does not depend upon mistakes bringing an immediate death, but simply an alteration in the eventual reproductive success of the organism. Therefore, even mistakes which do not result in death will be acted upon by natural selection if they have adverse consequences for reproduction, though the selection pressure may be weaker and take longer to bring evolutionary adaptations.

Bacteria exhibit the ability to collectively speed up species evolution by kick-starting their reproductive cycles. It's not all "entirely" random.

 

[reason]

Bacteria exhibit the ability to collectively speed up species evolution by kick-starting their reproductive cycles. It's not all "entirely" random.

I am utterly flumoxed as to what this response has to do with my post, and neither did I mean to suggest that natural selection is '"entirely"' random -- are we agreeing or disagreeing?

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

OK, I can see where you are comming from.

I guess, "making a mistake collectively" is hard to intepret. In the situations I had in mind, people have "it's someone elses problem" mentalities despite the fact that the consequenses affect all of them (though usually quite indierectly). So often, the problem ends up being noones problem.

Yeah I think the hardest problem to identify is one where we are partially (or totally) to blame, but our pride keeps us from seeing it. In that case it's basically impossible to identify the problem regardless of what evidence we have. The problem in that case is internal rather than external.

Maybe you use a credit union, but if you use one of the big banks (Bank of Ameirca in particular) you will likely see the "collective mistakes" that the banks (and the customers involved) make. You could say it is the CEOs fault, but as long as we keep banking with them, we are partly at fault for putting up with crappy service.

I'd say that ultimately it's the CEO's responsibility if there were only one bank making bad decisions. Lately there have been lots of banks making bad decisions though. That suggests to me that the problem is somewhere higher up the chain like either government regulation or The Fed (or both).

Customers are different from businesses though. What is good for a customer is not always good for a business and vice versa. Customers in that context are ultimately responsible to themselves for finding a business that suits their needs.

It's funny, I read somewhere, that EP and IJ types like to have particular people in charge of solvng problems, while EJs, and IPs like to have systems that remove the issue. I think both are important. I didn't pay much attention at the time, but I wonder if it points to the particular mentality towards problem solving in general.

I take my definition of a problem, from Are Your Lights On?,

A problem is a difference between what you percieve and what you desire.​

It is your problem, and often yours alone. To make it someone elses problem, you need to bring up a difference between what they percieve and what they desire.

That make a lot of sense to my IP brain, how does it sound to you?

I'd never heard that about EP & IJ as opposed to EJ & IP. There may be something to that.

Your definition of problem makes sense to me, although I'd probably state it more like, "A problem is the difference between what you want to accomplish and what is being accomplished." The statements are very similar, but slightly different.