' MF Newsletter #5
By: Joe Boivin
Long ago battles and stubborn old men dressed in orange
are not worth the lives of three babies.
The Dutch are world leaders in understanding the gravity of
the current situation. They see themselves as among the
least badly prepared within Europe. Their government has
made it a top priority. The Netherlands Central Bank has
been tasked to coordinate and supervise Y2K measures in
the Dutch financial sector. Not all banks are expected to
complete the necessary work. The Dutch Prime Minister is
the only other world leader to really speak up on this issue
besides British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Few problems become resolved unless someone is held
accountable. Someone must own the problem. Leadership,
without clearly designated ownership, is not leadership. If
you cannot define who owns the problem, you cannot
provide effective leadership. The only valid default position
is that all leaders own the problem until they can delegate it
to someone else. Once the problem is delegated, the leader
continues to be held responsible. Anyone in any position of
authority must accept ownership of the Year 2000 Problem
before they can provide effective leadership. Anyone who
declines to accept ownership of this problem is not qualified
to provide leadership.
South Africa is following the GMF Five Step Process with
one addition. They believe all testing needs to be performed
by an independent or different party than the organization
responsible for fixing the problem. The theory is sound but
too little time remains to apply this approach to everything.
The most critical elements such as hydro should require
independent verification. Since independent testing is the
most complicated, the most expensive and the most time
consuming, other less critical elements can be tested by the
same people doing the fixes. As long as test results are
retained for audit purposes and as long as the people doing
the fixes agree to be at their post on January 1, 2000 to
correct anything that was missed, then that should be
sufficient.
South Africa is preparing a campaign to raise awareness
through a "National Awareness Day" to be held on August
19, 1998. I believe this campaign is a good idea as long as
everyone working on solving the problem declare their
decision (to be at work on January 1, 2000 or to be
somewhere else) by this date. This is important to us so that
we know who is "in" and who is "out". We know with
absolute certainty that there will be more problems on
January 1, 2000 than the world has ever seen before.
Unless everyone who can fix these problems is at their post,
we may not be able to put it back together. Anyone who
does not declare their intentions must be assumed to be
"out." Start listing this information in your workplace for all
to see.
History is full of many examples of large and powerful
organizations that became too complacent and then failed.
The largest and most complicated organizations always fail;
it is only a matter of time. Size is not always a guarantee of
success. The "we are too big to fail" mentality results from
pride and arrogance. Nothing is invincible. The weak links
will fail first. Use these weak links as early warning signals.
We need to stop depending so much on things that could
break. We must have at least two ways to do anything
critical to our survival. When one breaks, the other keeps
working. In this way, basic services are available to help fix
the broken elements. Consider each community. What
products and services are needed from outside the
community? What can be done to make the community
more self-sufficient? Any products or services that must be
acquired from outside of the community should have a
backup plan in case the primary source fails. Also consider
stockpiling anything that may be critical to the well being of
the citizens in each community.
y2ktimebomb.com |
