MURPHY’S LAW: APPLICATIONS TO DISASTER MANAGEMENT-JACK ABEBE

MURPHY’S LAW: APPLICATIONS TO

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Presented By Jack Abebe

PhD Candidate

CDM/H/205/12

Masinde Muliro University

Outline of the Paper

SynopsisBackground Postulates of the Law Murphy’s Law and Disaster Management Conclusion

Synopsis

• The law's author was Edward A. Murphy, Jr., a U.S. Air Force engineer, who, in 1947, was involved in a rocket-led experiment in which all 16 accelerator instruments were installed in the wrong way, resulting in Murphy's observation.

Synopsis: Continued

• Murphy's Law is sometimes expressed as "Anything that can go wrong, will -- at the worst possible moment."

• In that format, the Law was popularized by science-fiction writer Larry Niven as "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives” (sometimes known as "Finagle's corollary to Murphy's Law").

Synopsis: Continued

• Extrapolating from the original, we arrive at Murphy's Laws of Information Technology, a set of principles that may seem to be jokes but which events sometimes prove to be fundamental truths.

Background

• According to the book A History of Murphy's Law by author Nick T. Spark, differing recollections years later by various participants make it impossible to pinpoint who first coined the saying Murphy's law.

Background: Cont.

• The law's name supposedly stems from an attempt to use new measurement devices developed by the eponymous Edward Murphy.

• The phrase was coined in adverse reaction to something Murphy said when his devices failed to perform and was eventually cast into its present form prior to a press conference some months later — the first ever (of many) conferences given by Dr. John Stapp.

Background: Cont.

• From 1948 to 1949, Stapp headed research project MX981 at Muroc Army Air Field (later renamed Edwards Air Force Base for the purpose of testing the human tolerance for g-forces during rapid deceleration. The tests used a rocket sled mounted on a railroad track with a series of hydraulic brakes at the end.

Background: Cont.

• Initial tests used a humanoid crash test dummy strapped to a seat on the sled, but subsequent tests were performed by Stapp, at that time an Air Force captain.

• During the tests, questions were raised about the accuracy of the instrumentation used to measure the g-forces Captain Stapp was experiencing.

Background: Cont.

• Edward Murphy proposed using electronic strain gauges attached to the restraining clamps of Stapp's harness to measure the force exerted on them by his rapid deceleration.

• Murphy was engaged in supporting similar research using high speed centrifuges to generate g-forces. Murphy's assistant wired the harness, and a trial was run using a chimpanzee.

Background: Cont.

• The sensors provided a zero reading; however, it became apparent that they had been installed incorrectly, with each sensor wired backwards.

• It was at this point that a disgusted Murphy made his pronouncement, despite being offered the time and chance to calibrate and test the sensor installation prior to the test proper, which he declined somewhat irritably, getting off on the wrong foot with the MX981 team.

Background: Cont.

• In an interview conducted by Nick Spark, George Nichols, another engineer who was present, stated that Murphy blamed the failure on his assistant after the failed test, saying, "If that guy has any way of making a mistake, he will."

Background: Cont.

• Nichols' account is that "Murphy's law" came about through conversation among the other members of the team; it was condensed to "If it can happen, it will happen," and named for Murphy in mockery of what Nichols perceived as arrogance on Murphy's part.

Background: Cont.

• According to Robert Murphy's account, his father's statement was along the lines of "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way."

Postulates of Murphy's Law

• Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

• You will always find something in the last place you look.

• No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.


• The other line always moves faster.

• In order to get a loan, you must first prove you don't need it.

• Anything you try to fix will take longer and cost you more than you thought.

• If you fool around with a thing for very long you will screw it up.


• If it jams - force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

• When a broken appliance is demonstrated for the repairman, it will work perfectly.

• Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.


• Everyone has a scheme for getting rich that will not work.

• In any hierarchy, each individual rises to his own level of incompetence, and then remains there.

• There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.

• When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate.

Murphy’s Law and Disaster Management

• Murphy’s Law, which states, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” gained prominence in 1949 at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

• According to a letter written by Col. John Stapp, he overheard Captain Edward Murphy say, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he will.”


• He was referring to an unnamed technician on the base who seemed unable to complete his tasks correctly.

• From that point forward, Col. Stapp told his subordinates to prepare every project with Murphy’s Law in mind, because anything can go wrong.


• Bad things do happen, even to good people. Consider, for example, the aftereffects of the most recent earthquakes in California several years ago.

• Entire practices were destroyed in a few minutes. Hard drives, charts, mirrored hard drives, and software installation disks were lost forever.


• Of those doctors who wisely kept a backup of their data offsite, statistics show that half of them learned that their backup would not restore or they had been backing up the wrong data for years.


• Preparation for disaster is the key. As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” To prepare for uninterrupted service a practice would need to spend five to ten times more than the typical practice on equipment, configuration, line and power services, monitoring, and continued maintenance to get the job done correctly with Murphy’s Law in mind.


• Fortunately, there is a solution that provides adequate protection and is financially reasonable and sound — the Cloud provides the overall best business continuity solution. In the event of a disaster the practice can regain access to all of its data in a matter of minutes.


• For example, take the experience of Drs. Chung and Aurora of Vancouver, who use a web-based application, Curve Dental, to help them manage their practice.

• Upon arriving one morning for a new day, Dr. Aurora discovered that all of his computers had been stolen during the night.


• With patients set to arrive soon, Dr. Aurora called his wife, who brought him his personal laptop from home. Within minutes he had access to the day’s schedule, and he carried on as if it was business as usual.

• Murphy’s First Law reminds us of the importance of risk assessment and the value of investment in risk prevention.


• However hard organizations try and however much they invest in risk prevention they never completely identify and eliminate all risks.

• The rules of mathematics are clear; regardless of how small the probability of risk occurrence, given enough time it is certain to happen.


• So Murphy’s Second Law reminds us of the need for a Business Continuity Plan, which is our last ditch defense to enable recovery once that most improbable and unforeseen event has taken us out.


• When disasters occur, in spite of all of our planning and preparation there is always an impact. If there was no impact then it wouldn’t be a disaster and we wouldn’t require business continuity.

• Our job is to put plans in place to make sure that the impact is contained to a level that our organizations can accept and survive.


• We should communicate this level of residual risk to top management in our organizations.

• Doing so might help defend otherwise pressured business continuity budgets and help dispel the myth that Business Continuity Plans somehow guard us against all impact from a disaster.


• the fact is that in most people’s normal lives they live with potential sources of accidental death — from unsafe electrical wiring that can cause fires, to potholes on roads that can kill, and the consumption of contaminated water and food.


• Nothing’s perfect. But it helps make one cautious, take pre-cautions, and adopt measures to prevent, mitigate and reduce the likelihood of disasters.

• Based on this understanding of human error all modern systems and organizations have developed methodologies to deal with potential sources of disaster and death. Yet, accidents happen.

Conclusion

• It is not, therefore, in preventing an accident that we must judge our ability to beat Murphy’s Law, but in our ability to deal with the consequences. If something will go wrong, because it can, then one must pay as much attention to preventing accidents as to dealing with accidents. Disaster management and response are as important as disaster prevention.

Conclusion

• Disaster management is a human science — that is, it is as much about systems as it is about people.

• Systems that can fail, will fail;

• and, people that can make mistakes will make mistakes.

EndQuestions are Welcome

Thank You!