In the movie East is East there is a great line
Crude…
But great…
And what d’you think I do in there morning till night?
Counting mushy ****in’ peas?
Can you think of anything more futile than counting mushy peas?
In his book The Tiger That Isn’t (which is also great) Andrew Dilnot picks up on the idea.
N.B. If you aren’t from the UK and don’t know what a mushy pea is, then you are gastronomically bereft and should watch this video. Be warned they are so good we have non left to export.
When is a mushy pea a mushy pea?
How on earth would you define one?
- Is it a certain size?
- Does it have to be a particular shade of green?
- What proportion of a whole pea should it be?
- What about the shape?
- Or sloppiness?
- Or texture?
When is a mushy pea a mushy pea?
It isn’t just mushy peas that are hard to define
Our operations are full of ambiguity, and that gives us a problem. Can you manage what you can’t define or measure?
- When is a patient a patient?
- When is a fraud a fraud?
- When does a customer start to wait?
- When does a query become a complaint?
- And when does an issue become an emergency?
Here is the little secret
It doesn’t matter that much so long as you broadly right…
- Create an operational definition, an all-encompassing one (don’t exclude things)
- Stick with it and don’t change it
You can spend your life arguing about definitions and measuring and remeasuring until you get an answer you like, or you can do something to improve the situation.
How do you want to spend your time?
It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong ~ Anon
Author: Jonty Pearce
Published On: 16th Jan 2014 - Last modified: 21st Jan 2019
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