Discussion: View Thread

It occurs to me to question why people who continue with a bad decision when
they know it is a bad decision. If they wouldn't, there would be no case
studies. They'd be nipped in the bud.

However, when I am working on a project and see a "bad decision" happening,
I document the direction in the project proposal. This generally occurs
when management has set a constraint that is "bad" for the project. For
example, management can constrain a team to stay with a legacy software
because they own the site license and don't want to have to buy a new site
license. (someone has mentioned the y2k impact that has happened).

So, perhaps management constraints can sometimes be viewed as known bad
decisions that, in the real world, we can only mitigate.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Naylor John" <J.B.Naylor@LIVJM.AC.UK>
To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 1999 2:54 AM
Subject: Non-participants, flaming etc


> Colleagues
> Three weeks ago I asked if anyone could suggest examples of bad business
> decisions, reporting that I had become used to using the Bay of Pigs while
> students had become younger and less interested in US history!
>
> By bad decision, I meant one that could be identified at the time it was
> made. This 'a priori' condition provides a real challenge. There are, of
> course, thousands that show up afterwards. I wondered whether Frank
> Shipper's suggestion of Ford losing the K-car design to Chrysler falls in
> this post event categrory.
>
> Several colleagues pointed to the Challenger disaster, including full
> references which were very helpful (Charles Wankel provided the longest
> list). Looking into the layers of the story shows that identifying fault
is
> not so easy as headlines would suggest.
>
> On the industrial front, Jay Warner's references to GE's refrigerator pump
> was useful in itself and made me think of other ideas where
> manufacturability and FEMA had been sacrificed in the rush to market.
> Several examples occur in aircraft manufacturing.
>
> I'm reporting this because it's the outcome of a good discussion group.
> Contributions have given me food for thought so I'll shut up for a while.
>
> But if anyone has any other examples of a bad decision...........?
>
> John Naylor
> Liverpool Business School
>

Conna,
Sometimes a course of action is taken even though everyone knows
there is a bad decision looming. This is known as 'accepting the
risk' and is generally the only course of action management can
follow when to not take the decision results in a worse outcome.
An example is one taught to bus drivers all over the world - and
that is whether or not to swerve to avoid an animal running onto
the road when the bus is full of passengers. Which is the correct
course of action? Obviously not do anything that harms either,
but when a decision has to be made and a course of action taken
then the other will always, in at least some people's minds, be
the 'bad decision'.

Management, on a daily basis, is full of such choices and
depending on which viewpoint one takes there will always be good
and bad decisions. It is, as you say, the mitigation or
contingency that lessens the impact such decisions have that is
important.

Phil Rutherford
Academic Director and lecturer
Project Management Studies
University of New England


Conna Condon wrote:
>
> It occurs to me to question why people who continue with a bad decision when
> they know it is a bad decision. If they wouldn't, there would be no case
> studies. They'd be nipped in the bud.
>

Although this doesn't address John Naylor's request and it perhaps
tangential to the discussion, I have an instrument that is designed to
measure managerial perceptions about risk. This might be used to examine
whether a strategic decision is appropriate or if an organization is
focusing its resources appropriately.

The instrument can be found at:
www.commerce.ubc.ca/cogmap/

Called the "Key Risk Factor Assessment Survey" it is designed to measure a
manager's perceptions
of their organization and its environment. The survey requires two steps.
The first step uses a comprehensive list of risk factors to identify
relevant risk factors. The second step uses a nine-item scale to evaluate
each identified risk factor. The end result is a rank-ordered,
multi-dimensional
table that lists the manager's perceptions of the identified risk factors.

The instrument:

- provides a new and comprehensive method for capturing managerial thinking
about their
organization and its environment.
- provides a method to evaluate the degree of management awareness of key
organizational
and environmental factors.
- provides a method to evaluate whether or not a firm's management is
focusing its efforts
appropriately.
- by having an entire management team complete the survey, it is possible to
evaluate the degree of convergence and consensus among the top management
team about core organizational
factors.

The instrument is available and operating at the web site noted above. I am
happy to provide further information to those who contact me at:
martin.martens@commerce.ubc.ca

-Martin Martens
Ph.D. Student
OB/HR Department
Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration
University of British Columbia

You also have the situation where decisions are made based
on
incomplete policy. For example, a few years ago, a policy
decision was made to use the Ada software language on all
Department of Defense projects. The policy made this use
of Ada mandatory. The policy was fundamentally good because
the proliferation of languages was causing many long-term
maintainability issues. However, it was promulgated and
mandated before we had Ada compilers and the other tools to
make up the Ada environment. It was mandated anyway because
someone at the policy level wanted to take credit for doing
it
and it had to be done before the change in administration
because when that happened the political appointees who were
making these decisions would be out of office.
It was a well intentioned policy decision that was made a
few
years too early, thus a bad decision. It caused a
considerable
backlash against the Ada language even though Ada is
actually
a very good software engineering language.

Jim Dobbins


Conna Condon wrote:
>
> It occurs to me to question why people who continue with a bad decision when
> they know it is a bad decision. If they wouldn't, there would be no case
> studies. They'd be nipped in the bud.
>
> However, when I am working on a project and see a "bad decision" happening,
> I document the direction in the project proposal. This generally occurs
> when management has set a constraint that is "bad" for the project. For
> example, management can constrain a team to stay with a legacy software
> because they own the site license and don't want to have to buy a new site
> license. (someone has mentioned the y2k impact that has happened).
>
> So, perhaps management constraints can sometimes be viewed as known bad
> decisions that, in the real world, we can only mitigate.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Naylor John" <J.B.Naylor@LIVJM.AC.UK>
> To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, December 12, 1999 2:54 AM
> Subject: Non-participants, flaming etc
>
> > Colleagues
> > Three weeks ago I asked if anyone could suggest examples of bad business
> > decisions, reporting that I had become used to using the Bay of Pigs while
> > students had become younger and less interested in US history!
> >
> > By bad decision, I meant one that could be identified at the time it was
> > made. This 'a priori' condition provides a real challenge. There are, of
> > course, thousands that show up afterwards. I wondered whether Frank
> > Shipper's suggestion of Ford losing the K-car design to Chrysler falls in
> > this post event categrory.
> >
> > Several colleagues pointed to the Challenger disaster, including full
> > references which were very helpful (Charles Wankel provided the longest
> > list). Looking into the layers of the story shows that identifying fault
> is
> > not so easy as headlines would suggest.
> >
> > On the industrial front, Jay Warner's references to GE's refrigerator pump
> > was useful in itself and made me think of other ideas where
> > manufacturability and FEMA had been sacrificed in the rush to market.
> > Several examples occur in aircraft manufacturing.
> >
> > I'm reporting this because it's the outcome of a good discussion group.
> > Contributions have given me food for thought so I'll shut up for a while.
> >
> > But if anyone has any other examples of a bad decision...........?
> >
> > John Naylor
> > Liverpool Business School
> >

May I use this sample in my classes? I teach strategic information
management, and this is a great example of a modern case of Nolan's Control
Stage of maturity.
<grins>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Dobbins" <jdobbins@NISHANET.COM>
To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Monday, December 13, 1999 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: anticipating bad decisions


> You also have the situation where decisions are made based
> on
> incomplete policy. For example, a few years ago, a policy
> decision was made to use the Ada software language on all
> Department of Defense projects. The policy made this use
> of Ada mandatory. The policy was fundamentally good because
> the proliferation of languages was causing many long-term
> maintainability issues. However, it was promulgated and
> mandated before we had Ada compilers and the other tools to
> make up the Ada environment. It was mandated anyway because
> someone at the policy level wanted to take credit for doing
> it
> and it had to be done before the change in administration
> because when that happened the political appointees who were
> making these decisions would be out of office.
> It was a well intentioned policy decision that was made a
> few
> years too early, thus a bad decision. It caused a
> considerable
> backlash against the Ada language even though Ada is
> actually
> a very good software engineering language.
>
> Jim Dobbins
>
>
> Conna Condon wrote:
> >
> > It occurs to me to question why people who continue with a bad decision
when
> > they know it is a bad decision. If they wouldn't, there would be no
case
> > studies. They'd be nipped in the bud.
> >
> > However, when I am working on a project and see a "bad decision"
happening,
> > I document the direction in the project proposal. This generally occurs
> > when management has set a constraint that is "bad" for the project. For
> > example, management can constrain a team to stay with a legacy software
> > because they own the site license and don't want to have to buy a new
site
> > license. (someone has mentioned the y2k impact that has happened).
> >
> > So, perhaps management constraints can sometimes be viewed as known bad
> > decisions that, in the real world, we can only mitigate.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Naylor John" <J.B.Naylor@LIVJM.AC.UK>
> > To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
> > Sent: Sunday, December 12, 1999 2:54 AM
> > Subject: Non-participants, flaming etc
> >
> > > Colleagues
> > > Three weeks ago I asked if anyone could suggest examples of bad
business
> > > decisions, reporting that I had become used to using the Bay of Pigs
while
> > > students had become younger and less interested in US history!
> > >
> > > By bad decision, I meant one that could be identified at the time it
was
> > > made. This 'a priori' condition provides a real challenge. There are,
of
> > > course, thousands that show up afterwards. I wondered whether Frank
> > > Shipper's suggestion of Ford losing the K-car design to Chrysler falls
in
> > > this post event categrory.
> > >
> > > Several colleagues pointed to the Challenger disaster, including full
> > > references which were very helpful (Charles Wankel provided the
longest
> > > list). Looking into the layers of the story shows that identifying
fault
> > is
> > > not so easy as headlines would suggest.
> > >
> > > On the industrial front, Jay Warner's references to GE's refrigerator
pump
> > > was useful in itself and made me think of other ideas where
> > > manufacturability and FEMA had been sacrificed in the rush to market.
> > > Several examples occur in aircraft manufacturing.
> > >
> > > I'm reporting this because it's the outcome of a good discussion
group.
> > > Contributions have given me food for thought so I'll shut up for a
while.
> > >
> > > But if anyone has any other examples of a bad decision...........?
> > >
> > > John Naylor
> > > Liverpool Business School
> > >
>

Sure. No problem.

Jim Dobbins


Conna Condon wrote:
>
> May I use this sample in my classes? I teach strategic information
> management, and this is a great example of a modern case of Nolan's Control
> Stage of maturity.
> <grins>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Dobbins" <jdobbins@NISHANET.COM>
> To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 1999 5:14 PM
> Subject: Re: anticipating bad decisions
>
> > You also have the situation where decisions are made based
> > on
> > incomplete policy. For example, a few years ago, a policy
> > decision was made to use the Ada software language on all
> > Department of Defense projects. The policy made this use
> > of Ada mandatory. The policy was fundamentally good because
> > the proliferation of languages was causing many long-term
> > maintainability issues. However, it was promulgated and
> > mandated before we had Ada compilers and the other tools to
> > make up the Ada environment. It was mandated anyway because
> > someone at the policy level wanted to take credit for doing
> > it
> > and it had to be done before the change in administration
> > because when that happened the political appointees who were
> > making these decisions would be out of office.
> > It was a well intentioned policy decision that was made a
> > few
> > years too early, thus a bad decision. It caused a
> > considerable
> > backlash against the Ada language even though Ada is
> > actually
> > a very good software engineering language.
> >
> > Jim Dobbins
> >
> >
> > Conna Condon wrote:
> > >
> > > It occurs to me to question why people who continue with a bad decision
> when
> > > they know it is a bad decision. If they wouldn't, there would be no
> case
> > > studies. They'd be nipped in the bud.
> > >
> > > However, when I am working on a project and see a "bad decision"
> happening,
> > > I document the direction in the project proposal. This generally occurs
> > > when management has set a constraint that is "bad" for the project. For
> > > example, management can constrain a team to stay with a legacy software
> > > because they own the site license and don't want to have to buy a new
> site
> > > license. (someone has mentioned the y2k impact that has happened).
> > >
> > > So, perhaps management constraints can sometimes be viewed as known bad
> > > decisions that, in the real world, we can only mitigate.
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Naylor John" <J.B.Naylor@LIVJM.AC.UK>
> > > To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
> > > Sent: Sunday, December 12, 1999 2:54 AM
> > > Subject: Non-participants, flaming etc
> > >
> > > > Colleagues
> > > > Three weeks ago I asked if anyone could suggest examples of bad
> business
> > > > decisions, reporting that I had become used to using the Bay of Pigs
> while
> > > > students had become younger and less interested in US history!
> > > >
> > > > By bad decision, I meant one that could be identified at the time it
> was
> > > > made. This 'a priori' condition provides a real challenge. There are,
> of
> > > > course, thousands that show up afterwards. I wondered whether Frank
> > > > Shipper's suggestion of Ford losing the K-car design to Chrysler falls
> in
> > > > this post event categrory.
> > > >
> > > > Several colleagues pointed to the Challenger disaster, including full
> > > > references which were very helpful (Charles Wankel provided the
> longest
> > > > list). Looking into the layers of the story shows that identifying
> fault
> > > is
> > > > not so easy as headlines would suggest.
> > > >
> > > > On the industrial front, Jay Warner's references to GE's refrigerator
> pump
> > > > was useful in itself and made me think of other ideas where
> > > > manufacturability and FEMA had been sacrificed in the rush to market.
> > > > Several examples occur in aircraft manufacturing.
> > > >
> > > > I'm reporting this because it's the outcome of a good discussion
> group.
> > > > Contributions have given me food for thought so I'll shut up for a
> while.
> > > >
> > > > But if anyone has any other examples of a bad decision...........?
> > > >
> > > > John Naylor
> > > > Liverpool Business School
> > > >
> >