Detection#

looking back across the syllabus#

FOGBANK, the F-1, deskilling, automation surprise, contested craft losses — every case this course has read was noticed after the fact, when the capability was needed and turned out not to be there. None of it is a story about an institution that caught the gap while there was still time to act on it cheaply.

turning the method around#

Instead of diagnosing a loss that already happened, what would a FOGBANK-style gap look like while it was still forming, rather than after it had already cost years and a rebuilding budget?

why detection is harder than diagnosis#

The diagnostic tools this course has built so far — the record track, the capability track — are read from documents that describe a state, not from a live signal that a gap is opening.

discussion#

• For weeks 4, 5, 7, and 8: could someone inside the institution plausibly have noticed the gap forming, using only information available at the time?
• If not a technical signal, what kind of thing would the earliest signal have been — a staffing pattern, a retirement, a lapsed practice with no plan to resume it?
• If detection is harder than diagnosis, is it because the evidence genuinely isn’t there before the capability is needed, or because nobody is looking for it — and which of those two is true of your own organisation, if you have one?

activity: mark the early rupture#

Setup (5 min). Split into four groups, one assigned to each of weeks 4, 5, 7, and 8.

Groups (20 min). For your assigned case, identify the earliest point at which someone inside the institution plausibly could have noticed the gap forming, using only information available at that time. Mark it on that week’s diagram as an early rupture point, next to where the institution actually noticed.

Share-back (15 min). Each group presents its case’s gap between earliest-possible and actual detection.

debrief#

Compare the four gaps. Is the distance between earliest-possible and actual detection similar across cases? What actually caused detection to happen when it did in each one — who noticed, and why then rather than earlier?

wrap-up#

Detection is harder than diagnosis, and this course’s own tools are built for the easier of the two. Week 11 asks you to apply everything so far to a case where the loss, if it’s happening, is still in progress right now.