Comment by grvdrm

Comment by grvdrm 2 days ago

5 replies

Your first problem doesn’t feel new at all. Reminded me of a situation several years ago. What was previous Excel report was automated into PowerBI. Great right? Time saved. Etc.

But the report was very wrong for months. Maybe longer. And since it was automated, the instinct to check and validate was gone. And tracking down the problem required extra work that hadn’t been part of the Excel flow

I use this example in all of my automation conversations to remind people to be thoughtful about where and when they automate.

all2 2 days ago

Thoughtfulness is sometimes increased by touch time. I've seen various examples of this over time; teachers who must collate and calculate grades manually showed improved outcomes for their students, test techs who handle hardware becoming acutely aware of the many failure modes of the hardware, and so on.

  • grvdrm 19 hours ago

    Said another way: extra touch might mean more accountable thinking.

    Higher touch: "I am responsbile for creating this report. It better be right" Automated touch: "I sent you the report, it's right because it's automated"

    Mistakes possible either way. But I like higher-touch in many situations.

    Curious if you have links to examples you mention?

    • all2 13 hours ago

      The teacher example was from one of those pop-psych books on being more efficient with one's time. I can't remember the title off the top of my head. Another example in the book applied the author's model of thinking to a plane crash in the Pacific. I'm sorry, man. It's been a long time.