[SystemSafety] Data on Proof effectiveness from real projects

Steve Tockey Steve.Tockey at construx.com
Sat Apr 2 20:45:46 CEST 2016


PBL wrote:

"Well, that sort of depends on what the words are taken to mean. As I read
it, you're missing a
parameter of achievement, of output. Maybe you hid it in the concept
"work", but if so then I'd
suggest that's not a helpful way of expressing it."

I thought achievement was obvious in the term "work done". Work not
done--either because it was never started, or because it was never
correctly finished--can't contribute to either efficiency or effectiveness.


-- steve



-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety <systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
on behalf of Peter Bernard Ladkin <ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de>
Date: Saturday, April 2, 2016 12:36 AM
To: "systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de"
<systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Data on Proof effectiveness from real projects

On 2016-04-02 07:37 , Steve Tockey wrote:
> Generally speaking, efficiency is looking at investment per unit of work
>done. 

Well, that sort of depends on what the words are taken to mean. As I read
it, you're missing a
parameter of achievement, of output. Maybe you hid it in the concept
"work", but if so then I'd
suggest that's not a helpful way of expressing it.

For example, take the production function in a simple form. Product =
F(Labor, Capital). An
economist would understand "investment" = Capital, "work" = Labor.
"Efficiency" is, amongst other
things, a measure of how much Product is produced for a given input of
Capital and Labor. Our
economist would ask where the "Product" bit appears in your formulation.

Actually this ties in with a recent experience. The UK government
statistics agency wants to improve
its assessment of the contribution of ICT to national productivity, which
thoughtfully involves
consulting with engineers. So a few of us sat in a symposium with some
statisticians and what I
later figured out was the cream of the UK's productivity econometricians.
The kind of people who
introduce themselves with "hello, I'm Nick and I work at the LSE" and
proceed to make occasional,
spare remarks of casual brilliance, each one showing me I know even less
about econometrics than the
nothing I thought I knew. Finding myself occasionally surveying the
corners of the room for the most
convenient crawl space.

Fun, though. I went in thinking I nominally understood the briefing
papers, and came out really
understanding them. That's always fun.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of
Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de








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