September 13, 2014 at 12:07PM
"The efficiency-thoroughness trade-off is a characteristic of people [and] cannot be made by machines." #readingToday

The efficiency-thoroughness trade-off is a characteristic of people, because they are flexible and intelligent beings, and therefore also of organisations as socio-technical systems. The efficiency-thoroughness trade-off cannot be made by machines unless it is part of their design or programming. Yet in such cases the trade-off is different from what humans do, since it is algorithmic rather than heuristic. Indeed, it can be argued that the performance of any living system that has a modicum of awareness of its own existence will show this trade-off in one way or the other.

The ETTO Principle, Erik Hollnagel