But engineers do know that nothing is perfect, including themselves. As careful and extensive as their calculations might be, engineers know that they can err — and that things can behave differently out of the laboratory.
If engineers are pessimists, managers are optimists about technology. Successful, albeit flawed missions indicated to them not a weak but a robust machine.
The constant struggle between engineering and management, in a nutshell. We see it in the software world, too, where marketing schedules and “first to market” pressures clash with our desire to create well-designed, well-coded, defect-free software.
It’s a healthy struggle. “Perfect is the enemy of good”…