Discussion Forum > Landing on the moon
Alan:
<< There needs to be a mix I think. >>
Yes, that's exactly what I said.
<< There needs to be a mix I think. >>
Yes, that's exactly what I said.
October 2, 2011 at 20:10 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Today it's often a case of 'ask the workers how the tools and methods can be improved to best reach the goal' - certainly in car manufacturing.
October 2, 2011 at 22:02 |
smileypete
smileypete
smileypete:
Asking the workers how tools and methods can be improved is not the same as stepping back and letting them figure out how best to achieve the goal. Something with a high technical specification requiring coordination between a large number of people cannot just be left for people to figure out for themselves.
Asking the workers how tools and methods can be improved is not the same as stepping back and letting them figure out how best to achieve the goal. Something with a high technical specification requiring coordination between a large number of people cannot just be left for people to figure out for themselves.
October 2, 2011 at 22:48 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
You also need a process to check what they have produced and make sure that it has met the goal. In practice, you need to check their plans as they are developed to make sure that you have communicated the requirement effectively (and that they have the necessary tools and skills).
This applies whether you are delegating to the coalface workers, to middle managers or to specialist engineers.
This applies whether you are delegating to the coalface workers, to middle managers or to specialist engineers.
October 3, 2011 at 9:51 |
Will
Will
There needs to be a mix I think. In the moon landing case, presumably there were teams supervised by engineers or scientists who had detailed requirements laid out, but they also understood what their role was in the system and could thus adapt to unanticipated exceptional circumstances, which I'm sure were frequent.
Feynman told of a plant tasked with uranium enrichment in the manhattan project. They were failing in their task and also in danger of major disaster due to mishandling materials. The high secrecy of the project led to workers being ill-equipped to understand the issues around uranium. Feynman solved it by insisting on educating people on the physics. Once they understood the fundamentals they could handle the details which always are incomplete.