Page 137 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

136 Part 2 • Planning
Magic Carpet Software Experiential Exercise
To: Rajiv Dutta, Research Manager
From: Amanda Schrenk, Vice President of Operations
Re: Software Design Decisions

Rajiv, we have a problem in our software design unit. Our di- I need you to research the role of emotions in decision
verse pool of extremely talented and skilled designers is, un- making. What do the “experts” say? Is it even an issue that
doubtedly, one of our company’s most important assets. How- we need to be concerned about? What’s the best way to
ever, I’m concerned that our designers’ emotional attachment deal with it? Please provide me with a one-page bulleted
to the software they’ve created overshadows other important list of the important points you find from your research.
factors that should be considered in the decision whether to And be sure to cite your sources in case I need to do some
proceed with the new product design. At this point, I’m not follow-up.
sure how to approach this issue. The last thing I want to do is This fictionalized company and message were created for educa-
stifle their creativity. But I’m afraid if we don’t come up with an tional purposes only, and not meant to reflect positively or negatively on
action plan soon, the problem may get worse. management practices by any company that may share this name.

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Case aPPliCation 1

Big Brown Numbers

t’s the world’s largest package delivery company with the Consider that each UPS driver makes an average of 120
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instantly recognizable trucks. Every day, United Parcel stops per day. The efficiency challenge is deciding the best
I Service (UPS) transports more than 18 million packages order to make all those stops (6,689,502,913,449,135 + 183
and documents throughout the United States and to more zeroes of possible alternatives)—taking into consideration
than 220 countries and territories, including every address “variables such as special delivery times, road regulations,
in North America and Europe. (Total worldwide delivery and the existence of private roads that don’t appear on a
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volume was 4.6 billion packages and documents in 2014.) map?” Another description of the logistics decision chal-
Delivering those packages efficiently and on time is what lenge: There are more ways to deliver packages along an
UPS gets paid to do, and that takes a massive effort in help- average driver’s route “than there are nanoseconds that Earth
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ing drivers to make decisions about the best routes to follow. has existed.” Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of alter-
Efficiency and uniformity natives. The human mind
have always been important to can’t even begin to figure
UPS. The importance of work UPS has been described as it out. But the ORION al-
rules, procedures, and analytic an EFFICIENCY FREAK. gorithm, which has taken
tools are continually stressed 10 years and an estimated
to drivers through training and hundreds of millions of
retraining. For instance, drivers are taught to hold their keys dollars to build, is the next best thing. IT experts have de-
on a pinky finger so they don’t waste time fumbling in their scribed ORION as the largest investment in operations re-
pockets for the keys. And for safety reasons, they’re taught search ever by any company.
no-left turns and no backing up. Now, however, the company So what does ORION do? Instead of searching for the
has been testing and rolling out a quantum leap in its long- one best answer, ORION is designed to refine itself over
used business model of uniformity and efficiency. It goes time, leading to a balance between an optimum result and
by the name ORION, which stands for On-Road Integrated consistency to help drivers make the best possible decisions
Optimization and Navigation. What it boils down to is helping about route delivery. And considering how many miles UPS
UPS drivers shave millions of miles off their delivery routes drivers travel every day, saving a dollar or two here and there
using decision algorithms built by a team of mathematicians. can add up quickly. When a driver “logs on” his delivery