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RE: XML As Fall Guy

  • From: cbullard@hiwaay.net
  • To: peter.hunsberger@gmail.com
  • Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:05:59 -0600

RE:  XML As Fall Guy
Referring to Admiral Rickover:

"*He* was the one in charge, he had the authority and the backing, and apparently he had good managerial skills. And every Tuesday without fail we and every nuclear contractor had to send a letter addressed to him *personally* that would begin"

See USS Thresher. "Too far, too fast." and look up the term Scope of Certification which came into use after that failure.

Look up "normalization of deviance".

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/The_Loss_of_USS_Thresher

Letting the bean counters have the final say:

"The shipyard then stopped testing due to deadlines and increasing cost."

Relying on standards:

"What probably happened was that quality control and safety standards were all right down to operating depths of pre-Thresher subs. But when they built one to go much deeper, the standards just weren?t good enough anymore? The implications of the deeper depth weren?t totally grasped."

Living with the culture:

"One interpretation of the case is that the Navy acted rashly sending the Thresher to test depth, knowing the low chances of survival and impossibility of rescue if an incident occurred. But naval customs and military indoctrination of strict chain of command diffused responsibility among the Thresher's commanders, crew, and technicians. This situation created either unawareness of dangerous conditions, or unwillingness to assume the risk of reporting risks and defying orders."

Living with the failure:

"The loss of loved ones is always difficult to bear, but military families typically take comfort knowing their loved ones died valiantly serving their country. The Thresher incident was different: the submarine sank during what should have been a routine test. But even now, 50 years later, families of those lost in the Thresher disaster take comfort in knowing that the incident provoked major overhauls in naval safety. "We are so appreciative that something good came of this, with the creation of the SUBSAFE that the Navy has taught us about all of these years later. USS Thresher changed history.""

Software is a very different business if you have to look into the faces of people you will kill by being too self-centered and unable to see the big picture.

What should we learn:

"There are several lessons from this case that shed light on professionalism. Professionals must exercise constant vigilance to avoid the effects of normalization of deviance. This is a personal responsibility, but also must be ingrained in programs such as SUBSAFE. Management must uphold consistent standards of quality, without diffusing responsibility. Professionals must also be willing and able to spotlight unsafe practices, despite personal risk."

Most of us are in the shoe business and aching feet are just a fact of life. It's a bad attitude in any profession.


len


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