Why Systems Fail LO10350

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@CompuServe.COM)
05 Oct 96 12:58:48 EDT

Replying to LO10312 --

Dale Emery asks,

>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?

Good question. In my experience, existing systems end to have a momentum
of their own, and they will self-correct if they get out of kilter. Of
course, they may be doing something poorly, or irrelevant, but they will
still self-correct. Any new direction that you want to establish as the
norm will take a lot of energy to establish permanently. It will require
continuous input of energy ( or better tools or systems) for a significant
period of time until it becomes permanent. During that time, any lapse in
the input of energy will allow the system to drift inexorably back to
where it was before.

Projects qualify as the latter situation. Therefore, they require
continuous input of energy until they are complete, and a new stable
equilibrium is reached. One can achieve the continuous input of energy
through a careful selection of the project leadership and well-defined
opportunities for project sponsors to review and refine.

-- 

Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com

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