FMEA and Politics
“What do politicians want?” a speaker asked an audience once. “To get more power,” came the answer. The crowd laughed. The speaker nodded, “Yes, you can argue that. They want to be voted, to stay in power.”
This memory stayed with me because at that time, I thought it was a vile thing to want, to want more power or even to stay in power. Nowadays though, I am not too sure. I have to agree, that without power, politicians can’t do what they want to do. Any human for that matter, needs to have the power (be it financial, time or even your normal body capability), to be able to do anything. And given in a larger context of a country, or society, the power is even more important (and larger), so much so, that the loss of it will incapacitate the politician and the ruling party.
Why is this important?
It is because when we understand the motive(s), then we understand the actions. So that when we can plan around this things.
Let me give another parable. When designing a product, engineers think about all the way a product can fail. Ideally all parts will last forever and never fail but that is not the case, hence the reason for the pessimistic view of parts failing. Not only that, what would happen when a product/part fail and the likelihood it to happen is also considered. All of this is then thrown into a mathematical model, where it generates a value.
Why is this important?
Is it because when we understand how things fail, we can prevent them for failing catastrophically. So that we can plan around failures and mitigate losses or even in worse cases, loss of life.
The reason that I wrote this post is that sometimes engineers are a bit jaded with how projects are commissioned. The common theme is projects, especially large and public projects, are under political will. Yes, it is always so. But engineers have to curb their dispassion by understanding that politicians work under certain motives, and they (engineers) can influence these motives, as much as politicians can stop or start a project.
Of course it’s harder said than done. I’ve done saying it, I’ll stop now.
Thank you for reading.