Environment 4. Imperfect system but stable system: why? how?

In a large railway station where the tracks ends, train traffic is optimized to such an extent that, if a platform agent is slow to release a train for sixty seconds, this delay generates a disturbance that agents will take thirty minutes to contain. Optimizing the use of the tracks, of course, but also technology used to release the platform tracks are the key parameters of the fluidity of the comings and goings of trains of all kinds who knit their crosses. Optimization calculated days in advance, but management of locomotives hooking and unhooking provided in the moment by operators on the platforms.

Assumption. The system allows players to collectively manage uncertainties which exceed individual capabilities. Overawe the uncertainty is worth some collateral inconvenience. Actors could protect the system from the intrusion of an initiative, however good it may be, in order to strengthen their mastery of uncertainty--a reason good enough to "resist change" (expression goes). Identify relevant uncertainty can anticipate the reaction of the actors to our initiative.

Tool - expertise. Find out the relevant uncertainty. What is the action system useful for ?

Why bother ? Because an initiative, however good it is, may upset those agents that regulate a system of action for the benefit of all : the system in effect reduces a critical uncertainty for all stakeholders and if they cannot contain the uncertainty at individual level, the system does. The interest of stakeholders can bring them to resist an initiative because it threatens the system--resistance justified from their point of view : to protect the system is to contain uncertainty.

Experimentation. Identifying uncertainty managed by the system. In order to do this, pay extra attention when a failure occurs : what's happening ? Who are the operators who react? What purpose are they looking after in the short term? In addition, observe the actors that prevent the breakdown, which often indicate where the problem lies or could hurt.

In the case of the said station, locomotive hooking and unhooking operators take some amazing freedoms to accelerate the release of the track/platform. It becomes apparent that they are the ones who regulate the critical uncertainty in emptying the railway tracks in due time, so that any initiative that may impact them should be undertaken with their consent, their complicity, under penalty of complete blockage of the station in a few hours.

References. Sociogram and action system at Crozier-Friedberg , see " The actor and the system ."

Stakeholder responsibility. Myself.