SUO: RE: Re: SUOP Topic :> Definition Of Issue
JA:
But can we commence an Enumeration Of Issues if we
haven't yet decided what an Issue is? I think not.
TJ: I think we can. I often include an Issues section in the weekly status
reports for software projects
I am managing. And I've never found it necessary to define "issue". I've
never, for example, had my boss
chastise me for failing to include an issue, and discovered that he counted
certain "things" as issues
that I did not. "Issue" is clear enough for the blue collar working man.
Let's leave it alone until
evidence arises that there has been misunderstanding, or until discussion
suggests that there might well
be misunderstanding if we don't stop and clear up the "issue" that might
lead to that misunderstanding.
TJ: can we commence an Enumeration of Issues if we must first define
"Issue"?
I think not. For then we must define each of the terms used in the
definition, and then each of
the terms used in the definition of those terms, and so ad infinitum.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of
Jon Awbrey
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 6:51 PM
To: SUO; Matthew West
Subject: SUO: Re: SUOP Topic :> Definition Of Issue
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SUOPT :> Issue. Note 6
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JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
Matthew,
Another one of yours that I do not see in the Archive.
I will start out by logging it under Issue, but I can
already see that when the chips start to fly, some'll
no doubt end up in several other bins of the sorter.
Re: SUOP 15. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11621.html
JA: I didn't mean "behavior modification" or anything like that.
We cannot literally force a project group to achieve a happy
mediation between its actual and espoused agenda, or even to
bring about a condition of accord between its aspirations and
a set of practical aims that are feasible, genuine, and honest.
Again, I keep going back to our tired old tyre safety example.
If product producers make claims that are not supported by the
available test data, then the least we can do is alert the media.
MW: The record of unresolved issues against a project
would be appropriate evidence for voting against
acceptance of a deliverable that had not succeeded.
JA: I observe the use of subjunctive mood, for example, your "would be"
above,
to express a wish, or perhaps a statement of the way things "ought to
be".
I have many fond wishes of my own, but they become a bit too fond when
there is no Expectation -- and let me say that my years of statistics,
not to mention years of even sadder experience, have taught me to use
the term "Expectation" as an experienced-based term quite distinct
from the optative category of hopes and wishes -- that such hopes
and wishes will be actualized, certainly not all by themselves.
JA: So our task here, in this Specification Of Procedures,
is not merely to state our hopes and wishes, but to
reason out the schematics of plans that may, on the
basis of experience and reason, be Expected to have
some practical effects on behalf of their success.
JA: That is the task.
MA replies:
MW: It sounds to me that you want to introduce specific rules for say
the number or proportion of issues that are unresolved say before
an acceptance vote can be taken. Would that be right?
At this point I am just asking the question,
raising the issue, pointing to the problem,
however one wishes to express it.
But can we commence an Enumeration Of Issues if we
haven't yet decided what an Issue is? I think not.
MW: The problem is that this is as much open to abuse as the current
state of affairs is. I don't think we can avoid the possibility
of abuse by any procedure. The best we can do is make it visible.
That is usually enough though.
If you think that making it visible is enough,
then I suspect you haven't been looking around.
At least, you see things differently than I do.
And that raises a Question Of Perception (q.v.),
in its Bearing On Intercommunication (q.v.) and
Interoperation (q.v.).
But I do think that we have a Burden, Charge, Duty, Function, Imperative,
Mission, Office, Onus, Responsibility, Role, Task, or whatever one wants
to call it, to think about Specific Actions within our Power and Purview
that might be taken to Address the Problem at Issue, as opposed to, say,
just standing about looking.
Jon Awbrey
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