A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer and a Branch Manager were on their
way to a meeting. They were driving down a steep mountain road when suddenly the
brakes on their car failed. The car careened almost out of control down the
road, bouncing off the crash barriers, until it miraculously ground to a halt
scraping along the mountainside. The car's occupants, shaken but unhurt, now had
a problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no brakes. What
were they to do?
"I know," said the Branch Manager, "Let's have a meeting, propose
a Vision, formulate a Mission Statement, define some Goals, and by a process of
Continuous Improvement find a solution to the Critical Problems, and we can be
on our way."
"No, no," said the Hardware Engineer, "That will take far too
long, and besides, that method has never worked before. I've got my Swiss Army
knife with me, and in no time at all I can strip down the car's braking system,
isolate the fault, fix it, and we can be on our way."
"Well," said the Software Engineer, "Before we do anything, I
think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."
From: John Cohan