5 ms·

"check of the designs and specs and you probably have enough safety margin to launch" I hope to god this is an engineer (or scientist), otherwise you have non

"check of the designs and specs and you probably have enough safety margin to launch" I hope to god this is an engineer (or scientist), otherwise you have non technical people making technical calls.

mannykannot 8y ago
Read the second paragraph of the post you are replying to - and, while you are about it, maybe you could finally respond to detaro's point, above. Your criticism of the article fails on at least four grounds: 1) the managers in question were engineers, as is often the case in large, highly technical projects; 2) engineers can make mistakes, and did so here; 3) engineers can disagree (especially when some of them make a mistake), and did so here; 4) the article does not actually make the claim you say it does.
- petermcneeley 8y ago
  Thank you for all of your replies. The primary issue here is the choice of example (Challenger disaster) to explain "Normalization of Deviance". Its like if you were an SSE working on a product that had some big security issues. You tell your manager not to launch the product because there is a high risk of a very bad security violation. The manager under pressure to get it done decides to ignore your warnings and launch the product. There is a huge security violation just after the product launch and it causes a scene. Why reach for some pet theory (Normalization of Deviance) to explain this? This is just the ongoing tension between the desires of higher management and the reality that those on the ground know. I think the reason why I am so insistent on this is because I am worried about the wrong lesson being learned. Politics and Power play far more of a role than we like to admit. This hierarchical structure is also very good at deflecting and distributing blame. Is Normalization of Deviance just another excuse to explain the commonality of bad management?
  - mannykannot 8y ago
    It is something of an insult to the accident investigators to suggest that someone just "reached for some pet theory" to explain the Challenger crash (and that of Columbia, for that matter.) There was a very thorough investigation, that clearly established that there had been a normalization of deviance leading up to the final showdown over whether to launch. The commission would have come to a shallow and unsatisfactory conclusion if it had looked at that showdown alone and not recognized the normalization of deviance that had set the stage for it. I encourage you to read both reports, available from NASA: https://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html https://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html The term 'nomalization of deviance' was coined precisely because accident investigators have found a recurring pattern. The recognition of a recurring pattern is more helpful in accident prevention than simply attributing each incident to "just the ongoing tension between the desires of higher management and the reality that those on the ground know." Here's another example of it, not involving engineers, and where explicit management pressure was not an issue: http://www.rapp.org/archives/2015/12/normalization-of-deviance/ http://www.rapp.org/archives/2015/12/normalization-of-devian...
    - petermcneeley 8y ago
      thanks for you reply. I would agree that the Columbia and Bedford disasters are a much closer fit for this theory.
      - mannykannot 8y ago
        Ha! You are not, of course, agreeing with me (or the accident investigation board) so long as you dismiss normalization of deviance as a key issue in the Challenger crash.

"check of the designs and specs and you probably have enough safety margin to launch" I hope to god this is an engineer (or scientist), otherwise you have non technical people making technical calls.

mannykannot 8y ago

Read the second paragraph of the post you are replying to - and, while you are about it, maybe you could finally respond to detaro's point, above. Your criticism of the article fails on at least four grounds: 1) the managers in question were engineers, as is often the case in large, highly technical projects; 2) engineers can make mistakes, and did so here; 3) engineers can disagree (especially when some of them make a mistake), and did so here; 4) the article does not actually make the claim you say it does.

petermcneeley 8y ago
Thank you for all of your replies. The primary issue here is the choice of example (Challenger disaster) to explain "Normalization of Deviance". Its like if you were an SSE working on a product that had some big security issues. You tell your manager not to launch the product because there is a high risk of a very bad security violation. The manager under pressure to get it done decides to ignore your warnings and launch the product. There is a huge security violation just after the product launch and it causes a scene. Why reach for some pet theory (Normalization of Deviance) to explain this? This is just the ongoing tension between the desires of higher management and the reality that those on the ground know. I think the reason why I am so insistent on this is because I am worried about the wrong lesson being learned. Politics and Power play far more of a role than we like to admit. This hierarchical structure is also very good at deflecting and distributing blame. Is Normalization of Deviance just another excuse to explain the commonality of bad management?
- mannykannot 8y ago
  It is something of an insult to the accident investigators to suggest that someone just "reached for some pet theory" to explain the Challenger crash (and that of Columbia, for that matter.) There was a very thorough investigation, that clearly established that there had been a normalization of deviance leading up to the final showdown over whether to launch. The commission would have come to a shallow and unsatisfactory conclusion if it had looked at that showdown alone and not recognized the normalization of deviance that had set the stage for it. I encourage you to read both reports, available from NASA: https://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html https://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html The term 'nomalization of deviance' was coined precisely because accident investigators have found a recurring pattern. The recognition of a recurring pattern is more helpful in accident prevention than simply attributing each incident to "just the ongoing tension between the desires of higher management and the reality that those on the ground know." Here's another example of it, not involving engineers, and where explicit management pressure was not an issue: http://www.rapp.org/archives/2015/12/normalization-of-deviance/ http://www.rapp.org/archives/2015/12/normalization-of-devian...
  - petermcneeley 8y ago
    thanks for you reply. I would agree that the Columbia and Bedford disasters are a much closer fit for this theory.
    - mannykannot 8y ago
      Ha! You are not, of course, agreeing with me (or the accident investigation board) so long as you dismiss normalization of deviance as a key issue in the Challenger crash.