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Refuge
Find peace of mind in quiet observation and prudent, methodical readiness planning. Through preparedness, the resilient core of our nation enhances our national collective strength and security. We encourage such resolve and endurance within the “Refuge.”
Friday, July 13, 2007
How to Survive (Almost) Anything
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For example, in May 1989, Lynn Hill, the winner of more than 30 international rock-climbing titles, was preparing to climb what she called a “relatively easy” route in Buoux, France. She threaded her rope through her harness, but then, instead of tying her knot, she stopped to put on her shoes. While she was tying them, she talked with another climber, then returned to climb the rock face. “The thought occurred to me that there was something I needed to do before climbing,” she later recalled, but, “I dismissed this thought.” She climbed the wall, and when she leaned back to rappel to the ground, she fell 72 feet (22 meters), her life narrowly saved by tree branches. In her case, more training would not have helped. In fact, experience contributed to her accident. She had created a very efficient model for tying her rope to her harness. She could do it without thinking. So the act of tying her shoes may have been similar enough to tying her rope that it allowed her to reach the unconscious conclusion that her rope was tied, even while leaving a slight residue of doubt.
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PPPPPP!
SOP?
The reason to have an Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is to prevent blunders. I had an Engineering Professor (Brother Austin Barry) who used to rant: “A mistake is putting mustard on your hamburger; an error comes about in any measurement; a blunder is when you make a dumb mistake.”
How true!
An SOP allows one to repeat the same steps in sequence so as to prevent blunders. Mistakes and Errors will happen. How your SOP allows you to catch them before those things kill or maim you is the key point.
Productivity is ensured when you have and use SOPs.
imho
(I think Brother Barry would agree saying “finally you listened four decades later”!)
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Reinke Faces Life 
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First, thanks for the comment. I’m always appreciative that people read my stuff and then take the time to comment.
>How can anyone possible think that they can provide consistent results without an SOP?
People “feel” that not having SOPs makes them “freeer”. And, in many aspects, don’t care about results. Let alone consistent ones.
>Yet, the SOP also cannot be so rigid that it is immune to improvement. Where is the balance?
In Demming’s Quality world, one thinks in terms of boundaries. When 15>x>30 and 22>y>47, the SOP is used. Otherwise, not. (Yeah I know the signs are wrong. It’s a joke.) SOPs are like driving the car thru the rearview mirror. Great, except when change happens. That’s where Management kicks in. Results outside of the expected range; time to recompute the problem.
That’s when the “feeling” folks get into trouble because they can’t detect the shifts in time to adapt.
:-)
fjohn
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How can anyone possible think that they can provide consistent results without an SOP? Yet, the SOP also cannot be so rigid that it is immune to improvement. Where is the balance?
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