Playbook: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Lear.jpg|thumb|center|A [[playbook]] yesterday]]
[[File:Lear.jpg|thumb|center|A [[playbook]] yesterday]]
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A [[playbook]] is a comprehensive set of guidelines, policies, rules and fall-backs for the [[legal]] and [[credit]] terms of a {{t|contract}} that you can hand to the school-leaver in Bucharest to whom you have off-shored your [[master agreement]] {{t|negotiation}}s. She will need it because, being a school-leaver from Bucharest, she won’t have the first clue about the [[Subject matter expert|subject matter]] of the [[negotiation]], and will need to consult it to decide what do to should her counterparty object<ref>As it will certainly do, to all of them.</ref> to any of the preposterous terms your [[risk controller|risk]] team has insisted go in the first draft of the {{t|contract}}.
A [[playbook]] is a comprehensive set of guidelines, policies, rules and fall-backs for the [[legal]] and [[credit]] terms of a {{t|contract}} that you can hand to the school-leaver in Bucharest to whom you have off-shored your [[master agreement]] {{t|negotiation}}s. She will need it because, being a school-leaver from Bucharest, she won’t have the first clue about the [[Subject matter expert|subject matter]] of the [[negotiation]], and will need to consult it to decide what do to should her counterparty object<ref>As it will certainly do, to all of them.</ref> to any of the preposterous terms your [[risk controller|risk]] team has insisted go in the first draft of the {{t|contract}}.


[[Playbook]]s derive from a couple of mistaken beliefs: One, that a valuable business can be “solved” and run as an [[algorithm]], not a [[heuristic]];<ref>This is a bad idea. See {{author|Roger Martin}}’s {{br|The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage}}.</ref> and two, that, having been solved, it is a sensible allocation of resources to have a cheap and stupid human being run that process rather than a machine.<ref>Assumption two in fact falsifies assumption one. If it really is entirely mechanistic, there is absolutely no reason to have a human operating the process.</ref>  
[[Playbook]]s derive from a couple of mistaken beliefs: One, that a valuable business can be “solved” and run as an [[algorithm]], not a [[heuristic]];<ref>This is a bad idea. See {{author|Roger Martin}}’s {{br|The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage}}.</ref> and two, that, having been solved, it is a sensible allocation of resources to have a cheap, uninformed human being run that process rather than a machine.<ref>Assumption two in fact falsifies assumption one. If it really is mechanistic, there is no reason to have a costly, capricious human “helping to manage” — i.e., ''interfering in'' the process.</ref>  


In {{author|Thomas Kuhn}}’s argot<ref>{{br|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions}}. Brilliant book. Read it. </ref> playbooks are “[[normal science]]”: They map out the discovered world. They contain no mysteries or conundrums. They represent tilled, tended, bounded, fenced, arable land. Boundaries have been set, tolerances limited, parameters fixed, risks codified and processes fully understood.  
In {{author|Thomas Kuhn}}’s argot<ref>{{br|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions}}. Brilliant book. Read it. </ref> playbooks are “[[normal science]]”: They map out the discovered world. They contain no mysteries or conundrums. They represent tilled, tended, bounded, fenced, arable land. Boundaries have been set, tolerances limited, parameters fixed, risks codified and processes fully understood.  
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[[Playbook]]s are [[algorithm]]s for the [[meatware]]: they maximise efficiency when operating within a fully understood environment. They are inhabited exclusively by [[known known]]s. No [[playbook]] will ever say, “if the counterparty will not agree this, make a judgment about what you think is best.” All will say, “any deviations from this requirement must be approved by [[Litigation]] and at least one [[Credit]] officer of at least C3 rank.”
[[Playbook]]s are [[algorithm]]s for the [[meatware]]: they maximise efficiency when operating within a fully understood environment. They are inhabited exclusively by [[known known]]s. No [[playbook]] will ever say, “if the counterparty will not agree this, make a judgment about what you think is best.” All will say, “any deviations from this requirement must be approved by [[Litigation]] and at least one [[Credit]] officer of at least C3 rank.”


As far as they go, [[playbook]]s speak to the belief that, as [[normal science]], ''the only material [[risk]] lies in not complying with established rules'': They are of a piece with the [[doctrine of precedent]]: when they run out of road, one must appeal to the help of a higher authority, by means of [[escalation]] to a [[control function]], the idea being (in theory, if not in practice) that the [[control function]] will further develop the [[algorithm]] to deal with the new situation — ''[[stare decisis]]'' — and it will become part of the corpus and be fed back down into the playbook of established [[process]]es.<ref>This rarely happens in practice. [[Control function]]s make ''[[ad hoc]]'' exceptions to the process, do not build them into the playbook as standard rules, meaning that the [[playbook]] has a natural sogginess (and therefore inefficiency).</ref> The [[algorithm]] operates entirely ''inside'' the organisation’s real {{tag|risk}} tolerance boundaries. This is a good thing from a risk monitoring perspective, and is inevitable as a matter of organisational psychology — [[if in doubt, stick it in]] — but it all comes at the cost of efficiency. The [[escalation]]s it guarantees are a profoundly [[waste]]ful use of scarce resources.
As far as they go, [[playbook]]s speak to the belief that, as [[normal science]], ''the only material [[risk]] lies in not complying with established rules'': They are of a piece with the [[doctrine of precedent]]: when they run out of road, one must appeal to the help of a higher authority, by means of [[escalation]] to a [[control function]], the idea being (in theory, if not in practice) that the [[control function]] will further develop the [[algorithm]] to deal with the new situation, the same way the courts of the [[common law]] do — ''[[stare decisis]]'' — and it will become part of the corpus and be fed back down into the playbook of established [[process]]es.<ref>This rarely happens in practice. [[Control function]]s make ''[[ad hoc]]'' exceptions to the process, do not build them into the playbook as standard rules, meaning that the [[playbook]] has a natural sogginess (and therefore inefficiency).</ref> The [[algorithm]] operates entirely ''inside'' the organisation’s real {{tag|risk}} tolerance boundaries. This is a good thing from a risk monitoring perspective, and is inevitable as a matter of organisational psychology — [[if in doubt, stick it in]] — but it all comes at the cost of efficiency. The [[escalation]]s it guarantees are a profoundly [[waste]]ful use of scarce resources.


In theory the [[control function]] will have its own playbook, and the “court of first instance” is as bound by that as the baseline process is by the basic playbook. There is an [[algorithm]], a recipe, and the main ill that comes about is by not following it. Hence the existence of an [[internal audit]] function.  
In theory the [[control function]] will have its own playbook, and the “court of first instance” is as bound by that as the baseline process is by the basic playbook. There is an [[algorithm]], a recipe, and the main ill that comes about is by not following it. Hence the existence of an [[internal audit]] function.