Memorandum
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 14:37:04 -0800
From: Eric Armstrong
[John Werneken on Fri, 25 Feb 2000 02:14:22 -0800]
Your post
contains many well-reasoned,
passionate statements.
It's also important to recognize that Jon was not
presenting Robert's Rules as the "right" way, or
necessarily even the "best" way. I'm sure he would
agree with many of the points you mentioned, if
not all of them.
The point of Jon's proposal, as I understand it,
was that many people DO use Robert's Rules, or
something based on that mechanism (for better or
worse).
Given that fact, and given that a DKR is a necessary
part of any such system, automating a Roberts-like
procedure gets the camel's nose under the tent
flap -- it exposes many high-level decision-makers
to an important reasoning tool they were unaware of
before.
I say that only to do justice to Jon's proposal.
As I will be arguing in a subsequent post, I think
there is an even more compelling opportunity before
us that will produce even faster results.
However, I do agree that we should be on the lookout
for any decision-making procedure that works better,
and augment *that* if we can. The major question I
raised at that colloquium, in fact, was "are there
any other decision making models we should consider
using?"
For system design, we probably don't need a decision
mechanism, because "don't do it if you're not sure"
is a pretty reasonable design constraint. In many
arenas, though, *some* decision is required. Faced
with the inevitability of making some decision, if
only by default, we must ask "what works best?"
Question: What would you recommend as the best source
of information for one or more counter-proposals?
Sincerely,
Subject:
Parliamentary Assistance proposal
Eric Armstrong