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MISTICA-EN: Yanapanako: What happened?

From: Mistica coordination ([email protected])
Date: Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:10:34 AST

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From: Mistica coordination <[email protected]>
Subject: Yanapanako: What happened?
Date: 28/10/1999 21:10:34 -0400
Size of the original message translated from Spanish: 2652 characters,
48 lines
Keywords: methodology, crisis, quality, EMEC

Note: this is the integral message, not a synthesis

We continue to discuss upon the error we described in the
previous message, this time from the Coordination point of view:
How can an error like this occur?
What is going on with the "famous" EMEC Methodology?

A catastrophe always occurs when various - and simultaneous -
processing and control errors are accumulated.

The processing error was caused by dilatation in management
of another VC message (caused in its turn by excess of
perfectionism). As a consequence, all the other messages,
including important announcements like Yanapanako deadline
extension, were accumulated after this message. Why? This
scheduling system derives from the democratic principle that
we have established and that puts the chronology of message
in the first place.

There was no control (from the coordination), and the
"voluntary forgotten message" had not been detected for various
reasons (one moved, the other one is away on the mission,
the last one is heavily overcharged with work). Finally, there
was no communication between EMEC Team and the
Coordination. Here are all the ingredients for a catastrophe!

This error crudely reveals:

1) That the application of the EMEC methodology is not working
properly.

You have already realized it. As you all know well, this project is
a laboratory, this methodology is in its infancy and an error is
a tool for enhancing it! However, it is not an excuse for accumulating
all the possible errors... We anticipated that, well aware of the
situation and in order to solve this situation, we have already planned
a reorganization of the team (leaving the methodology unchanged).

2) That it is necessary to fix correctly a level of quality as well as
levels of autonomy vs. control in complex processes.

Pretensions to be democracy-sensitive and too exigent with the
level of quality can bring to counter productive results on both
aspects! This is a paradox that has become reality in our case.

We can only beg you (once again) for more patience and
comprehension in order to allow a harmonious development of
experiment. This will enable also to evaluate the experiment
without the noise of apparent operative inefficiency. We
give ourselves time until the end of the 1999. Somehow we will offer
a possibility of evaluation at the beginning of the 2000.

The Mistica Team promises not to repeat the same errors...although
there is always a possibility of "new errors" in this laboratory
we all participate in :-).

>From us, always with the intention to face openly and democratically
any situation that may present itself in this space, as much by the
Coordination Team as by you, the members of this community.

The Coordination
<[email protected]>

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