RE: [ba-ohs-talk] IBIS question
Hi Everybody, (01)
There's another point that I didn't see addressed in this discussion.
The point is to ask whether the problem formulation cannot be changed.
Many times by changing the problem formulation we get better
alternatives. Consider the following story proposed by Jean-Louis Le
Moigne in "Modélisation des systèmes complexes": (02)
A company moved its offices into a highrise where its departments got
scattered in several floors. The employees began to complain about the
elevators being too slow. A costly projet was started to improve the
response rate and speed of the elevators using complicated operational
research methods. While this project was going on someone had the idea
of placing mirrors next to the elevators and the employees stopped
complaining about the elevators. (03)
This means that we can see the problem as being "the elevators are too
slow" and start an IBIS discussion on how to get better elevators or we
can see the problem as "Employees don't want to waste their time in
front of the elevator." The range of ideas that can be generated for the
second formulation may include getting employees to do interesting
things while waiting for the elevators. These things can be of interest
for the employees only, as in the case of the mirrors, or they can be of
interest for both the employees and the company, writing suggestions for
improvement for example. (04)
To go back to Johannes' example, instead of asking how to best solve the
problem of providing customers with a faster product. We can ask why do
customers request a faster product. If they want to get some job done
faster, then what about the process they are using? If we changed the
process, it may have more impact on their efficiency than having a
faster product and we may not even have to make the complex choices
defined in Johaness' example. We will have other complex choices to make
when designing the process, though. (05)
Is this relevant to the discussion? How would you do this in IBIS? (06)
Gil (07)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
[mailto:owner-ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Conklin
Sent: mardi, 29. janvier 2002 07:28
To: ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
Subject: Re: [ba-ohs-talk] IBIS question (08)
Contents removed. (09)