| Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1999 11:03:49 -0700 | 03 00050 61 99062801 |
Mr. Morris E. Jones
Director of Architecture
Intel Corporation
350 East Plumeria; Mail Stop CHP02-1
San Jose, CA 95124
morris.jones@intel.com
| Subject: | Medical Practice |
Dear Morris,
Morris,
The other day you indicated Intel is not a good target for Communication Metrics because engineers do not like to read and write. On May 27, Andy Grove, Chairman of Intel, made the same point on national television.
A few days ago, you suggested lawyers might be a market for Communication Metrics, because their work practice requires writing. Of course engineers write, but your point may be that their deliverable is a "design" consisting of calculations and renderings; whereas, "writing" is the primary deliverable of lawyers. Calculations and renderings are about 2% of an engineer's work. Talking, thinking, reading and writing make up 98% of the work (see analysis on March 3, 1999 of human thinking). Note that intelligence is the process that aligns work product with input from thinking, talking, reading and writing.
While percentages vary, "knowledge" work, like engineering, inherently has a strong component of communication. Lack of alignment between communication and work product results in visiting the lawyer to discover what went wrong, as explained in the New World Order... paper, which asks: why should lawyers be the only intelligence process for management?
Why not add "intelligence" to engineering, construction, service on cars, boats, people (i.e., medicine), indeed to managing everything, so that there are fewer mistakes?
Concurrent Discovery was developed on June 20, 1996, as a derivitive of Communication Metrics, to use discovery for proactive management that fixes small mistakes in alignment between conduct and commitments, requirements, and objectives, before they grow into big problems that require lawyers to discover what went wrong years after-the-fact, and force an unpleasant adjustment on everyone.
As you know, Communication Metrics uses SDS to set alignment by linking related blocks of information over time into chains of chronology showing cause and effect. On Nov 21, 1991, you analogized this to 3 x 5 cards. SDS supports the documentation process, which engineering standards require, and which are ignored because engineers like to work on the design, rather than write it up. You, also, noted on May 24, that managers, under tight schedules from marketing, drive engineers to ignore documentation standards. Managers intend that this "documentation" part of "intelligence" will be done later, when there is more time; but, this good intention is rarely accomplished, because there is not enough time, and even when there is, the person with the intention has been assigned to another project. Those left in charge are unaware that critical "intelligence" has been developed.
A recent visit to the doctor revealed that, like engineers, car mechanics and construction managers, doctors have published requirements to keep records for medical "intelligence," but they, too, don't have enough time. As a result, everyday, all day long, doctors make the same mistakes that lawyers, engineers and mechanics make, all of whom. sooner or later, wind up in the lawyer's office seeking a painful adjustment, to fix big problems, the kind you mention that take up your time, as an executive.
Of course medical mistakes are more troubling than an error in a computer chip, fixing the car or building an airport. Self-interest leads each of us to invest time for effective treatment, which is embodied in Kaiser's proposal for a partnership between doctor and patient. Here is an example using Communication Metrics to support the partnership envisioned by Kaiser, that may seem helpful to all of us nearing middle age, and who will be depending on the doctor to do a good job, rather than wait for the lawyer to discover what went wrong years later. It shows how simple summaries in the form of a letter, can be linked to larger chunks of critical information that exceed span of attention, so that people can be a little more thorough, a little more proactive, in helping the doctor diagnose small problems early, and determine the best remedy. Intelligence works in medicine the same as in engineering, the law, fixing the car, and in construction. Like the alphabet, it is versatile.
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch