

The Logic of Failure (2011) - timdaub
http://tersesystems.com/2011/06/10/the-logic-of-failure/

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bambax
> _Delayed Feedback. Human beings tend to assume that an action will yield a
> response immediately, or not at all. This is the way that we interact with
> the world on a daily basis, and we can become very confused when there 's a
> significant delay in the system's response._

This is what I find the most difficult, personally. When the feedback actually
arrives, it's hard to link it to possible causes located far away in the past.
It's also difficult to live with the fact that our actions can have distant
consequences (but of course they do).

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maroonblazer
I was a project manager on web development efforts at IBM when I read that
book and "Managing the Design Factory"[0] around the same time. The
combination of the two completely changed how I approached managing projects
generally.

[0][http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Design-Factory-Donald-
Reinert...](http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Design-Factory-Donald-
Reinertsen/dp/0684839911)

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jonsen
Systems Theory; the greatest miss in general education.

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Gravityloss
just having a better feel for Stock and Flow would be beneficial for everyone
who is voting.

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zby
It is fascinating to read about all these thinking failure modes - but my own
(very tentative) takeaway from that book was that there is no one way of
thinking that is appropriate everywhere, that if many people are failing in a
particular way in one simulation game - then there is probably another game
where their way of thinking would be the winning strategy.

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lovemenot
Your comment seems to encapsulate the thinking process found to be effective
in the experiment.

E.g. You say: _very tentatively_ ... there is _probably_ another game ...

Such measured language suggests that you'd try to test your hypotheses, given
the opportunity.

~~~
zby
Well - there was another game described in that book (but not in that linked
article) where it was better to act quickly upon any tentative hypothesis
instead of gathering data first and doing much testing.

