The second excerpt I chose from Winsor’s “Communication Failures.” is shown below
This piece from the article describes the response from a memo in which an engineer dicusses the O-ring sealing issue. In the memo the engineer explains that if the primary seal O-ring doesn’t seal quickly, the probability that the second seal holds is significantly reduced. Essentially, the engineer is saying that there is a significant issue and a real possibility of failure. However, as can be interpreted from this excerpt, those who read the memo at the time didn’t understand what it meant and its significance.
One of the parts that surprised me the most about this excerpt is that it seemed as though those who had a responsibility to make crucial decisions about the Challenger launch didn’t understand “the joint well enough to realize the data was crucial”. This was suprising to me beacause I would assume those who had the power to make desicions regarding the project would know everything about it and be very involved, but this piece of the article revealed this was not the case.
Overall, Windsor’s “Communcation Failure’s” was an eye-opening article that revealed what major consequences can result from poor communication and bad engineering ethics.
Golan's Lexicon 