UKC

They're all issues now.

In reply to aln:

I have no problem with that.( unless you want to make an issue of it

In reply to aln:


or 'blocs'.

In reply to aln:

I thought it was challenge. Or opportunity. Or something else stupid like that. Anyway, lets drill down the issue, touch base, line up the ducks and hit the road running.

Don't forget to fly your pants up the flagpole.

In reply to john arran:

Very good.

In reply to aln:


Big ones?

In reply to marsbar:




...and lets see who salutes them....

In reply to marsbar:


nah its feature.

In reply to aln:

Problems have solutions. What do issues have?

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Opportunities.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:


Tissues to catch them...

In reply to Chris_Mellor:


well it depends on the issues. Big issues have bigish feet. However, small issues have smallish feet!

In reply to girlymonkey:

Big issues have sellers

In reply to aln:
At risk of being boring here are a few thoughts about this topic.
During the 1980's lots of UK & US manufacturing companies (Many in the car industry) embraced the concept of continuous improvement (CI) as a reaction to the huge progress made by the Japanese companies in the 1960's and 70's. If they had looked further back they would have seen the hand of W Edwards Deming who was an advisor to the Japanese government in the 1950's as part of America's rebuilding of their infrastructure after WW2. He invented CI and immortalised it in his famous stating of the14 points. (I will spare you the detail) - but most of them still hold good today. To Deming problems were not barriers to progress but tunnels to better ways of working and that learning techniques for moving forward were essential to progress.
I heard a story that the word 'problem' was once banned In Ford Motor Company to try and change a mind set in order to discover better ways of working - I don't know if it was true but it epitomises the huge shift in thinking that has taken place in manufacturing over many years.
So what is the relevance to climbing?
There was once talk about 'The last great problem' on a crag but I now hear more reference to 'projects'. These are as yet incomplete but the expectation is of a positive outcome - this is a mind shift because it implies that there will be a result someday. Pure Deming.
Deming was a great believer in training to improve skills of the workforce - training has been widely adopted by the climbing community as a device for improvement.
He considered Leadership (Which he separated whole heartedly from management) to be key to progress - perhaps that has an echo in climbing in that high profile ascents by leading climbers set the pattern for future standards and ethics.
Deming was a proponent of measurement as a key to quality control - build processes that ensure quality and measure key dimensions of the output to check you are in control of the process. Looking at ascents and 'measuring' (gauging) the quality is an integral part of modern new routing.

So what started as a light hearted thread about problems has now been hi-jacked by my pseudo intellectual ramblings - I apologise if they interfere but I champion my right to have an opinion on this topic.
Carry on folks!

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Thanks for that, good knowledge. But not what my OP's about. I'm having a grumble about the word issue being used incorrectly in place of 'problem' in everyday speech. In fact in the last few months problem seems to have become obsolete.

In reply to aln:
I accept that I strayed away from your topic and rambled wildly but a wee search for a definition gives this:
Problem: A matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome:
I think many climbers welcome new 'problems' to work out but refer to them as 'projects' which will eventually be completed - 'overcome' - it is a different mind set that aids success.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Deming was great. Sadly far too much of his work has been hijacked by management idiots of the Peter Principal type, who haven't read or understood it, but just taken trivial parts of the whole, with no idea of what they are doing and turned sensible ideas into pointless sound bites.

Dilbert usually has it about right.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

I came cross Deming when I was doing a degree in NHS Management in the 90s. The contrast between his ideas- drive fear out of the workplace, quality, blame free culture etc (which is what I had been used to) and what was - and is - advocated as 'management' in the NHS was heart breaking.

In reply to aln:
So, I'm not a word person. Please can you explain the difference between problem and issue?


Is this it?
http://dilbert.com/strip/2008-11-13

In reply to marsbar:


Obviously. You started your post with a superfluous 'so'.

In reply to aln:

I don't know what to say to that. As this is UKC I assume an insult is in order as I am wrong. Your father smells of elderberries? Your mother is a hamster?

In reply to marsbar:


That only works if you're French and I'm English. I'm Scottish...

No insult intended

In reply to aln:

Ask the third logician

In reply to Orgsm:

More beer?

In reply to aln:

Browsing this forum tonight. Issue issue issue.

In reply to aln:

Hey there's a new buzz phrase word etc let's all stop thinking as we speak and spout the new thing

In reply to aln:

Have you ever thought, maybe the problem is you. You seem like someone with issues.

In reply to The New NickB:


Often. Coz of my problems.

You seem like someone with issues.

I've had a bit of a cold recently.

In reply to Orgsm:
http://xwhy.comicgenesis.com/d/20110518.html

In reply to marsbar:

Smile

In reply to john arran:


At the wall the other day, someone asked me if id 'done any good Blocs'

I told him I didn't no what he was talking about, he said it was french. 'Oh' I said "Are you french, I don't speak french'

'No' he said 'I'm not French'

I walked off scratching my head