#bookquote
"To see how taking a static approach to managing a dynamic world can get you in trouble, consider the history of commercial Global Positioning Systems. When GPS went “mainstream” in 2007, it represented an enormous leap over paper-based maps. By pinpointing a car’s location using satellites and linking that signal to digital maps, GPS gave drivers turn-by-turn directions to almost any destination.
However, early GPS versions could be frustrating because they didn’t adapt to changing traffic conditions. If, for example, you asked such a system to guide you from Boston to New York City, it used a sophisticated algorithm to analyze existing maps and determine the fastest route between the two cities. But if there was a traffic jam along the route, perhaps due to a car accident or a sporting event, the system had no way of knowing about it and often routed you into the backup. The static nature of early GPS systems rendered them incapable of reacting to changes in real time or to anything else outside their programming.
You could try to fix this problem within the static framework by adding rules based on historical patterns. Rush hours, for example, are easy to predict, and the system could route you around cities during them. Adding one new rule, however, usually requires a second rule to deal with exceptions to the first. For instance, rush hour only happens during the week, so the initial solution would needlessly avoid cities on weekends. This could, of course, be fixed by making sure the system knew what day it was and by using different rules for weekdays and weekends. Accommodating sporting events would require inputting the relevant team schedules and making sure you distinguish between home and away games. Construction poses a bigger challenge, and it’s probably impossible to predict traffic accidents."
Repenning, Nelson P.; Kieffer, Donald C.. There's Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way of Real Work
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