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 a
t 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.“
