A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer, and a Departmental Manager were on their way to a meeting in Switzerland. They were driving down a steep mountain road when suddenly the brakes on their car failed.
The car sped out of control, bouncing off crash barriers, until it finally came to a halt, scraping along the mountainside.
Shaken but unhurt, they now had a problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no brakes. What should they do?
“I know,” said the Departmental Manager. “Let’s have a meeting. We’ll propose a vision, formulate a mission statement, define goals, and through continuous improvement, solve the critical problems.”
“No, no,” said the Hardware Engineer. “That will take too long, and besides, that approach has never worked. I’ve got my Swiss Army knife. I can strip down the braking system, find the fault, fix it, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Well,” said the Software Engineer, “before we do anything… I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again.”