ORIGINAL: Smoothfretn
Sometimes the only answer is ''because that's the way we do it''.
In every other nook and cranny of the world where pattern is flown - from Norway to Nigeria to Malaysia to South Africa to Bora Bora - these rules are simply understood and followed because that is what we, as a collective community of like-minded hobbyists, have agreed that we will do.
Seems to work everywhere but with a small minority here.
This reminds me of the many conversations I've had as an element of my professsional life. Any justification for a rule/activity that is enforced/performed which amounts to ''because that's the way we do it'' or ''everyone does it'' immediately raises red flags.
The interactions/conversations typically go something like this ...<span style=''font-size: 9pt''>
Q: Your process, means and methods were analyzed and we found you do ''X'' but we are unable to determine the value in doing ''X''. Maybe we missed something. Please explain why you do ''X''?
A: We have always done ''X''.
Q. But what purpose does ''X'' serve? How does doing ''X'' improve the quality of your mission/business?
A. Well, when I came here we were doing ''X''. Now that I'm in charge we continue to do ''X'' because I see no reason to stop doing it. In fact, I have instituted improvements to do ''X'' better.
Q. Interesting. So how does doing ''X'' better impact your bottom line?
A. Well, we instituted changes and are doing a much better job of accomplishing ''X''. We cut costs by 1/4 and are more efficient at doing “X”.
Q. So you cliam you have improved how you do ''X'', but you can’t correlate those improvements in terms of bottom-line benefit to your mission/business.
A. Well, if you put it that way, no we have not.
Q. OK. You brought us in to review your process and suggest improvements. We find no mission/business justification for the investment you make to do ''X''. We recommend you stop doing ''X''. Will you give it a try?
A. No, we can't possibly do that. We have always done ''X'', everyone else does X, and I'm not about to change it. Besides, I can find many people around here that can explain why we do ''X''. Perhaps not to your satisfaction. But we do HAVE OUR REASONS.
As a relatively new participant in the pattern community I'm monitoring this discourse from a cost/benefit ''value-added'' perspective. RIX is asking the right questions. But he is getting no meaningful answers. Responses - yes. Answers - no. Each rule should directly achieve or contribute to achievement of an objective and should have rationale for how it is intended to acheive that objective. Doing so provides the means to ''test'' the rule periodically to determine if it is serving its intended purpose - and provides a platform for subsequent improvement of the ''overall process''.
Anyone subjected to adherence to the rule should be able to obtain a clear statement of objective and rationale for that rule.
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