Principle of war #9 – Security

Security: Do not permit adversary to acquire an unexpected advantage

We do not want to be surprised by our arch-enemy (TIM WOODS) showing up at the worst time and slapping us in the face with a quality problem. Murphy’s law in-part states “if there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then”.

Whenever TIM WOODS strikes, the organization has to pay for it in some way. We call this “Cost of Poor quality” or COPQ. COPQ includes obvious costs like overtime, scrap, refunds, discounts, employee time, and so on. There are also less obvious costs like reputation, lack of a referral, and brand recognition. Murphy’s law is telling us TIM WOODS wants to show up at the worst possible time to causes the greatest COPQ event for the organizations – he is trying to make you fail big time.

To apply the principle of security to reduce or prevent TIM WOODS shenanigans a common tool is the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). FMEA is a risk analysis tool that asks “What could happen?” and then take preventative actions to avoid COPQ in the first place. Contingency plans and emergency processes are other methods employed by organizations to react to TIM WOODS if he shows up during some critical time.

Don’t get surprise attacked by TIM WOODS