Everything has a margin of tolerable error. It is only through persistent efforts that we can bring the errors within this margin, or increase the margin.
The Great Margin of Error
I’ve encountered managers who compare building software to building a car or performing surgery. They argue that cars and surgeons don’t make mistakes, so why does the software application have bugs?
These statements are often made in one-sided monologues, and I usually don’t bother trying to educate people who come from manufacturing backgrounds on software development. However, to provide some perspective for the others, here are my arguments:
- Mistakes by surgeons are quite common. You can easily find information about “mistakes by surgeons” online, mostly laughable if you have a funny bone but pity the patient. Additionally, there are many instances of patients receiving the wrong medication due to doctors’ bad handwriting. I’ll not even get into the issue of spurious and sub-standard drugs.
- The automotive industry experiences a significant number of major recalls. You can read more about this at Top 10 Worst Car Recalls in the Automotive Industry History | carVertical. Have you heard of electric vehicles catching fire?
- The list is endless – faults in construction, buildings, and bridges collapsing, and even the laughable misaligned Gokhale Bridge and the Barfiwala Flyover in Mumbai. Even the measuring tape – can you guarantee that the 3 cms on the measuring tape you have is exactly 3.00000 cms? Never!
The fact is that the world is full of errors. Everything has a margin of tolerable error. It is only through persistent efforts that we can bring the errors within this margin, or increase the margin. Toyota’s SixSigma and the Agile approach focuses on improvement in cycles, but do not forget one of the major reasons for the reliability of Toyota is that it knowingly or unknowingly did not reduce the MarginOfError by not over-engineering like in most of the German cars.