The Logic of Failure

The book 'The Logic of Failure' by Dietrich Dorner contains very interesting discussions and research results regarding decision making during the design and planning of complex systems. One part of the book separates conversations into 3 categories: 1) Decisions; 2) Reflection; and 3) Questions (page 16). He found that people (using computer simulations of complex simulations of cities) would tend to make many decisions in the early stages of a simulation (e.g., the first 1 or 2 rounds of an exercise), but then make fewer decisions each period, thus illustrating the human nature to stay on course with early decisions. He also found that better participants would make many more decisions throughout the course of the simulation. In addition, good participants would consider more aspects when evaluating the impact of their decision toward meeting a goal. It would be interesting to collect similar data in the Renzo simulation, or in the construction sequencing activities.

Dorner also discusses goals. He postulates that general goals are of no use unless they are broken into partial goals. He also discusses 'repair service' behavior which is to seek out broken items in a simulation and try to fix them, instead of trying to manage a complex situation. This repair service mentality can lead to solving the wrong problems or the emergence of new problems based on the changes made to solve a less important problem (page 60 - 63).