There are 25 scenarios in Checking and Double-checking of 126 exercises in Problem Solving.
DID YOU CHECK? HOW DID YOU CHECK?
The Programme in Problem Solving (PIPS) was introduced to officer cadet training at the Joint Services College from 1977. It was designed to introduce officer cadets to the decision-making culture of the military.
Defence force journal 14 1979 Jan_Feb
So much is not taught in the military. New soldiers just get used to the military way. If officers make errors, they may not get training for their errors, just extra duties as punishment. It is called extra training.
The programme promoted a number of skill areas that involved checking, double-checking, fault finding, drawing conclusions from evidence and planning. This report below will focus on skills of checking and double checking.
The control of checking and double-checking must remain with the person responsible. Control must not be allowed to pass into the hands of others. In each scenario below, someone was responsible. Too often other people took control who were seeking to play tricks.
The aim of the programme was to teach officer cadets to apply insights from the solution of one problem to the solution of problems in other contexts. Hence the scenarios were taken from world history.
***************
DO YOU HAVE THAT NUMBER? The duty officer receives a phone call from a stranger seeking to find information. He suggests that the stranger ring another person on 74561234. He asks the person if he has that number 74561234. The stranger says he does. But the stranger got the number wrong.
Who had made the error? First was made by the duty officer. He should have had the stranger read the number back to him 75416234. Wrong. The duty officer allowed checking to move away from him. He should have had the decision as to whether the number is right or wrong. Information has to flow to the checker not away from him.
PLAYING TRICKS WITH INFORMATION. Con-men find information and gain entry by listening to what information other people give away. He approaches a person in the street and says he knows him from somewhere.
The victim asks "Do you know me?" "Did you live in Rabaul?" Yes. "Were you there in 1995?" Yes. "Were you a friend of my brother John?" Yes. The victim supplied all the information and the con-man has just said yes. The victim thinks the person is an old family friend. But he is really a complete stranger playing tricks.
This person has been foolish in supplying all information. I have been greeted in the street by con-men who say they know me. If he insists, I ask if he lived in Kundiawa in 1991. A con-man will say yes. Did you work at the hotel? Yes. Was your wife a friend of my wife? Yes.
Then I say that he must be thinking of someone else. I have never lived in Kundiawa and have never been married. Then I walk away. The con-man has been conned. If he had said No. No. No, he is probably not a con-man.
Once establishing he is an old friend, next step is to ask for K20 to pay for transport back to the village for his mother's funeral. Ah, PNG, the land of the expected.
RELEASE THE PRISONER. A young lieutenant was duty officer at the barracks. During the night, the phone rang and the caller identified as the Commanding Officer. He told the Duty Officer to go to the cells and release the prisoner.
The Duty Officer was unsure but the caller insisted. The officer decided to check so he asked the caller for his telephone number and he rang back. The caller was angry that he had done this and shouted at him. It must be the Commanding Officer. So the Duty Officer released the prisoner.
In the morning, the Commanding Officer was furious that the prisoner had been released. He did not ring the Duty Room and order his release. The Duty Officer had made a mistake.
What was the mistake? He had asked the caller for his telephone number. He should have taken the number of the Commanding Officer from the list in the duty room. If unsure, he should have rung the 2IC or driven to the house of the Commanding Officer and checked.
WHAT IS YOUR MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME? A man had an account with an international banking organization. He completed the application form and was accepted. Money came to him overseas on request through his bank. Then he lost his ATM card. On phoning the bank overseas, he was asked to confirm his identity. What was your mothers maiden name? What high school did you go to? Then they processed his request on his correct answering.
This is a quite deadly check. Only the applicant could know this information taken from his application form.
There were other checks too. He applied through his bank. Each fortnight, he had to fax his request with his account number and signature. Someone who stole the ATM card would get access to only one fortnight's funds if the client would provide the pin number. If the card was lost the client would advise the overseas company. No money would be forwarded until a new card was sent.
THE MILITARY PARADE. What is a military parade? It is a 100% stock take of the soldiers and their equipment. At times it will involve the inspection of clean rifles. If there are 30 soldiers in the platoon, there will be 3 rows of 10 soldiers. There can be few tricks to be played by soldiers. Thirty soldiers means 30 rifles, 30 pairs of boots and 30 military shirts and trousers.
INSPECTION IN THE OFFICE. The officer decided to inspect the 30 soldiers in his office. So he had the sergeant line up the soldiers and they came in one at a time to be inspected.
What was the error in this approach? He could not review all soldiers at one time. There may not have been 30 soldiers unless he counted. Inspection of clean rifles was flawed by the fact that the 30 soldiers passed 5 clean rifles among them. The officer did not know he had inspected only 5 rifles. This is a silly scenario as no officer would make such a mistake.
PUT EQUIPMENT IN A PILE. The platoon had just come back from an exercise. The officer told the sergeant to have the soldiers put their equipment in a pile outside the Q store. This was done by 30 soldiers. When the equipment was taken into the Q store, it was found there was only 26 items of equipment. It seemed that 4 had been taken away by soldiers.
What was the error? The equipment should not have been piled but handed in by each soldier and his name marked off. Now there is no way of knowing who had handed gear in. Better still, there should have been a parade outside the Q store with 3 rows of 10 soldiers standing beside their equipment. They could have left at that point with 3 rows of 10 pieces of equipment to be collected.
MAPS PASSED TO THE FRONT. The platoon was in the class room studying map reading with compasses. There were 15 maps and 15 compasses. At the end of the lesson, the officer had the soldiers pass maps and compasses to the front. After the lesson, he counted to find 15 maps and 9 compasses. The soldiers still had 6 compasses.
What error was made? The compasses and maps should have been collected desk by desk. Or the soldiers pass these one at a time to the front table. The equipment is counted and only then the soldiers are dismissed.
COUNTING THE TROOPS. In a military academy, the duty student had the task of reporting to the incoming staff member the number on roll 32 - number present 32. Should the instructor accept this advice?
What should he do? He should carry on with the lesson but quietly count the heads in the class. He already has the class numbers in his notebook. Yes there are 32 on roll but a count of heads reveals that there are only 29 present. The duty student has given wrong advice. This has been a double-check. When we double-check, we use a method independent of the original method.
CHECKING AN ID CARD. Let us focus on drivers' licences. In Papua New Guinea, a driver's licence has a photo and little other information. In other countries, the licence has the eye colour of the holder as well as date of birth.
How can a policemen check that the holder is the owner of the licence? He can check the photo but that is often unreliable. It is more effective to ask the driver who produces the licence the colour of his eyes. Ummm green. Sorry driver - blue. What is your birth date? I can not remember. Please get out of the car.
This is an independent check and double-check.
MISUSE OF EDUCATION CERTIFICATES. A training officer was given the task of processing 89 applicants for positions as security guards at a security firm. The key requirement was a grade 10 certificate and a clean police record.
He collected the certificates. Some were photocopies and others had been prepared by computer. That cut the list opf applicants to 64. He gave them a test with several questions not to test aptitude but to check on attendance at high school. (1) What is a class patron? (2) In what month is the English Written Expression exam and (3) What are tectonic plates? and several more.
Many applicants had no idea. They should know that the exam is in August. Some said they had forgotten after graduating two years before. Tectonic plates is a topic in Social Studies from grade 7 to grade 10. If they can not remember, they were never at high school. That cut the list of applicants to 23.
The big test was still waiting . Each remaining applicant was interviewed and asked questions about themselves. Holding their education certificates, the training officer asked each applicant a number of questions.
(1) What is your name? (2) Spell your name. (3) What was your school? (4) What subjects did you study? (5) What was the result for English and Mathematics? (6) Who was the Headmaster? Several applicants failed. This was not their certificate. Only 15 applicants got through to selection.
We have to realize that in all job applications certificates belonging to others will be used. The approach is to send the certificates to the Measurement Support Unit of the Department of Education but this takes time and does not prove that certificates belong to the rightful holders. This applies also to applicants to the PNGDF.
A quick approach like the police checking the license above, is to ask questions on the person the applicant claims to be. A driver's license has details a thief may not have bothered to memorize. So too educational certificates. People who misuse certificates may not have thought they have to memorize details to cover the possibility of being questioned on the information.
It is sad that a security guard has to be of Grade 10 standard for standing at a gate like a log. But a false certificate involves a false name to be used with police checks to be in error on the wrong person. The applicant may be a local raskol.
SECURITY AT THE FACTORY. There was a story many years ago of security guards at the gate of a factory. They saw a worker come through the gate every week pushing a wheelbarrow full of personal effects. They were sure he was stealing and searched the wheelbarrow each time. This went on for years.
Many years later a former security guard met the man at a hotel and asked what he was stealing. The man said he was stealing wheelbarrows.
This has to be a silly story. If wheel barrows were being stolen, management would have advised the security at the gate to keep a watch. Factory wheel barrrows would have to be painted in company colours with a number on the side. As well, the guards saw him go out in the afternoons. They never saw him come in each morning with the wheelbarrow. They only saw him go out. A silly story but useful to decide why it is silly.
THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS. At the end of World War 2, the British wanted to trick the Germans into believing that the D-Day invasion was further up the French coast and on a different date. So they found a dead body and put a trench coat on him with dark trousers and a briefcase chained to his wrist. They took him by submarine to the coast of France and pushed him into the water.
They had a letter to his girl friend in his wallet and a mess bill. They knew that the Germans would check. So they had a woman at the girl friend's address and a man at the phone at the officers' mess. Sure enough his body was found on the beach in France and passed to the Germans. They checked.
An agent rang the mess for Major So-and-so to be told he had checked out. The girl friend cried when an agent knocked at her door and told her of her friend's death.
The Germans were under pressure and accepted the dead body and the papers in his brief case. They started moving armaments north. The British knew the Germans had been tricked.
What do we learn from this? When the opposition stops checking, the tricking can start. The Germans knew they had to check and the British were waiting for them to send an agent to check. They could have checked more. When checking stops, the trick can win. It can be applied in many ways in this program.
BOMBING OF THE VILLAGE. In World War 2, the Germans knew there was a British spy in their headquarters. So they planned to trap the person. They sent out a signal about the ball bearing factory in the north of Norway. It was a fake message. They checked on who had access to the signal in the headquarters.
Sure enough a week later the British bombed the village and the fake factory. The Germans knew that the spy had passed the message on.
This is a checking procedure based on cause and effect. Let us press a button to see who reacts. It is another form of independent checking that will be followed up on this program.
DESTROY THE SUBMARINE. In World War 2, there was warfare against German submarines. On one occasion, a British destroyer made contact with a submarine and dropped depth charges. After half an hour, oil started to rise from the sea. The destroyer had been successful. The submarine was destroyed. But they were not to know that the submarine had oil in a torpedo tube and fired to give the false impression that it was oil from a destroyed submarine.
What should the captain of the destroyer do? Was oil independent evidence? No. But the destroyer was not to know that. The captain should have checked by underwater radar to identify destruction of a submarine. Radar would have been independent evidence. Not oil on the surface of the sea.
STEALING MONEY FROM THE MESS. Money being stolen from the officers' mess. Each night it was counted and money found to be missing in the morning. The police were notified and they set a trap of having the money coated with a dye after being put in the cash box.
Dye would appear on hands when mixed with sweat. Sure enough in the morning, two mess stewards had red dye on their hands.
This is again an example of checking by cause and effect. The cause was the dye. The effect was the dye on hands that could only belong to those stealing the money.
STOCK-TAKE OF MESSES. Why is is that all the messes on a military barracks are stock-taked at the same time on the same day and the same hour? There is the Officers' Mess, Sergeants' Mess and Soldiers' Mess.
If the messes were stock-taked on different days, the mess staff would be able to play tricks. They would move stock between the messes in time for the stock-take. One mess had lost 5 chairs and 12 cooking pots. These could be brought across from the Officers' Mess and taken back after the stock-take. The checking process would be totally inaccurate.
NUMBERS ON STOCK-TAKE SHEET. Why are the quantities of items not listed on the stock-take sheet. The reason is that the stock-take counters are supposed to count stock not just agree with what was on the sheet. There are 140 blankets on the stock sheet. That is correct. Did you count the blankets on the Q store shelves? No. It looks like 140 blankets.
This is a key scenario for checking. The responsibility for counting rests with the stock-take officer. He has to make sure the count is correct. This means that the stock-take counters must not be given the opportunity to play tricks. Accuracy must always be moving towards the person responsible not away from his control.
IS THE VEHICLE BOOKED? An officer had booked a vehicle with the transport section to take a group of officers to the airport. On the day before he phoned the transport NCO and asked " Corporal, is the vehicle booked for tomorrow at 7.00am. The NCO replied that it was. Next day, no vehicle arrived. When a check was made, the transport officer stated that the booking was made for the following day at 10am.
Who has made the error? It may be there was trickery going on at the transport section. But the officer had made an error in the question he asked. He had passed the responsibility for checking to the NCO. He should have asked " There is a vehicle booked for the Joint Training Wing for tomorrow. Is that true? Yes sir. For what time is it booked? 10am. Sorry that was for 7am. I will talk to the transport officer. Make sure it is at the Officers' mess at 7.am " Yes sir.
SMUGGLING ACROSS THE BORDER. There were two countries linked by a common border and crossed by a main highway, the only road between the countries. Both countries had customs officers at the border.
There was concern at a late model luxury vehicle that used to cross into the country every week. They knew it was the same vehicle because it was the same make, model and colour -white. It had the same number plates. The customs officers would search the vehicle certain the driver was smuggling. Nothing was found.
Then the neighbouring customs advised their neighbour of a ring that was smuggling the same colour, model and make of white luxury vehicle. Suddenly the penny dropped. The drivers were smuggling vehicles.
What error was made? It was assumed that the same number plates on the same make, model and colour luxury vehicle made it the same vehicle. But each time, it was a different vehicle. It was time to start checking chassis and engine number of each vehicle before arrests were made.
But the big error was that they only saw the vehicle entering the country. It never crossed the border the other way. It had to be a different vehicle each time with the same number plates. The driver would leave the vehicle and return across the border in another way with the number plates.
PLEASE EXCUSE MY DAUGHTER. A teacher received a letter to excuse a girl from school. The teacher could see that the letter may have been written not by the mother but by the girl's school friend. He asked the girl who cried and said that the letter was from her mother.
The next day, another letter arrived stating that the teacher should be ashamed of himself for questioning a mother. The teacher decided to drop the matter but keep the two letters on file for future reference.
Who made the error? Neither teacher nor girl made an error. The teacher questioned the author. The girl may have had a fake letter from her school friend. Was the second letter a double-check? No. It may have been a double-trick. It could not be a double check as the teacher was not in control of the letters. A letter writer from somewhere was in control.
PHANTOM NAMES ON THE PAY ROLL. Government organizations have phantom names on payroll with salaries paid into phantom bank accounts. The money is collected by various corrupt senior officers.
Who has made an error? It is difficult if those who could do the checking are the corrupt ones taking the phantom salaries. But surely Government Departments have employee lists in which someone in high places could cross check with the salary sheets.
REQUEST FOR COMPASSIONATE LEAVE. The adjutant receives a request for compassionate leave from a soldier to attend the funeral of his mother in the highlands. What does the adjutant do? Does he confirm the mother's death before granting leave. How does he do that? How does he prove to himself that the woman is the mother? Does he make a call on mobile phone? This may prove to be one situation that is uncheckable.
An adjutant needs to accept that deaths do occur and tricks for leave do occur. But it is all too difficult. The adjutant needs to consider that the problems of checking are greater than granting leave. Let it be. If the soldier wants leave every month, that is a problem.
THREE SCENARIOS - BEFORE, DURING, AFTER. Three checking scenarios are (1) Checking has to be done before a person is admitted to secure areas. (2) In response to a fire, a fire brigade checks during the process of going to the fire with sirens wailing and (3) In a combat situation, the soldier gives the pass word and does not receive a response. He fires and checks after as to who the person is.This is a key format for the checking process.
BUILT IN CHECKS AND DOUBLE-CHECKS. There are checks and double-checks built into many administrative documents. We find vertical and horizontal totals in cash books and PNGDF ration returns.
Doctors use checks and double-checks in diagnosis. Symptoms show that the patient has so-and-so disease. This can be double-checked by low blood pressure. A further double-check can be made on the level of albumen in the urine.
PERSONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE CHECKS. It is in the interests of individuals and organizations to be aware of a need to check and double-check in security of money, stores and information, claims of advertisers, track record of contractors, claims of door-to-door salemen, letters of recommendation, educational certificates, certificates of trade competency, workers come to fix the telephone and herbalists claiming to cure HIV/AIDS.
It may not always be possible to draw a conclusion in early stages. It may be possible to do progressive checks. Contractors may be terminated in a month. So too a worker in a company put on a 3 month trial period.
OPERATIONAL CHECKING. It is not always possible for police and military to carry out thorough checks before responding to a public report. They could be in danger from a terrorist group or criminals seeking to divert them. The report of the bank robbery is fake and intended to lure the police to the other side of town to be ambushed or for a bank robbery at another location.
There was the report of American soldiers lured up a valley to be ambushed by insurgents falsely reporting a meeting of senior insurgents. Only option may be for police and military to respond to reports but to take operationally secure measures where possible.
DO YOU THINK OFFICER CADETS ARE NOW THINKING PROBLEMS THROUGH?
The simplest illustration of a double-check is seen with addition of a column of figures;
7 + 3 + 4+ 8 = 23
Check
7 +3 + 4 + 8 = 22
Check again
7 + 3 + 4 + 8 = 22
Double-check
8 + 4 + 3 + 7 = 22
The answer is 22.
Remember: A double-check is independent of the first method of checking.
DID YOU CHECK? HOW DID YOU CHECK?
The Programme in Problem Solving (PIPS) was introduced to officer cadet training at the Joint Services College from 1977. It was designed to introduce officer cadets to the decision-making culture of the military.
Defence force journal 14 1979 Jan_Feb
Captain Amoury Vane. 31 The Challenge to Management. Colonel John M.
Hutcheson, MC. 34 A Programme in Problem Solving. Captain B. D. Copeland ...
Hutcheson, MC. 34 A Programme in Problem Solving. Captain B. D. Copeland ...
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So much is not taught in the military. New soldiers just get used to the military way. If officers make errors, they may not get training for their errors, just extra duties as punishment. It is called extra training.
The programme promoted a number of skill areas that involved checking, double-checking, fault finding, drawing conclusions from evidence and planning. This report below will focus on skills of checking and double checking.
The control of checking and double-checking must remain with the person responsible. Control must not be allowed to pass into the hands of others. In each scenario below, someone was responsible. Too often other people took control who were seeking to play tricks.
The aim of the programme was to teach officer cadets to apply insights from the solution of one problem to the solution of problems in other contexts. Hence the scenarios were taken from world history.
***************
DO YOU HAVE THAT NUMBER? The duty officer receives a phone call from a stranger seeking to find information. He suggests that the stranger ring another person on 74561234. He asks the person if he has that number 74561234. The stranger says he does. But the stranger got the number wrong.
Who had made the error? First was made by the duty officer. He should have had the stranger read the number back to him 75416234. Wrong. The duty officer allowed checking to move away from him. He should have had the decision as to whether the number is right or wrong. Information has to flow to the checker not away from him.
PLAYING TRICKS WITH INFORMATION. Con-men find information and gain entry by listening to what information other people give away. He approaches a person in the street and says he knows him from somewhere.
The victim asks "Do you know me?" "Did you live in Rabaul?" Yes. "Were you there in 1995?" Yes. "Were you a friend of my brother John?" Yes. The victim supplied all the information and the con-man has just said yes. The victim thinks the person is an old family friend. But he is really a complete stranger playing tricks.
This person has been foolish in supplying all information. I have been greeted in the street by con-men who say they know me. If he insists, I ask if he lived in Kundiawa in 1991. A con-man will say yes. Did you work at the hotel? Yes. Was your wife a friend of my wife? Yes.
Then I say that he must be thinking of someone else. I have never lived in Kundiawa and have never been married. Then I walk away. The con-man has been conned. If he had said No. No. No, he is probably not a con-man.
Once establishing he is an old friend, next step is to ask for K20 to pay for transport back to the village for his mother's funeral. Ah, PNG, the land of the expected.
RELEASE THE PRISONER. A young lieutenant was duty officer at the barracks. During the night, the phone rang and the caller identified as the Commanding Officer. He told the Duty Officer to go to the cells and release the prisoner.
The Duty Officer was unsure but the caller insisted. The officer decided to check so he asked the caller for his telephone number and he rang back. The caller was angry that he had done this and shouted at him. It must be the Commanding Officer. So the Duty Officer released the prisoner.
In the morning, the Commanding Officer was furious that the prisoner had been released. He did not ring the Duty Room and order his release. The Duty Officer had made a mistake.
What was the mistake? He had asked the caller for his telephone number. He should have taken the number of the Commanding Officer from the list in the duty room. If unsure, he should have rung the 2IC or driven to the house of the Commanding Officer and checked.
WHAT IS YOUR MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME? A man had an account with an international banking organization. He completed the application form and was accepted. Money came to him overseas on request through his bank. Then he lost his ATM card. On phoning the bank overseas, he was asked to confirm his identity. What was your mothers maiden name? What high school did you go to? Then they processed his request on his correct answering.
This is a quite deadly check. Only the applicant could know this information taken from his application form.
There were other checks too. He applied through his bank. Each fortnight, he had to fax his request with his account number and signature. Someone who stole the ATM card would get access to only one fortnight's funds if the client would provide the pin number. If the card was lost the client would advise the overseas company. No money would be forwarded until a new card was sent.
THE MILITARY PARADE. What is a military parade? It is a 100% stock take of the soldiers and their equipment. At times it will involve the inspection of clean rifles. If there are 30 soldiers in the platoon, there will be 3 rows of 10 soldiers. There can be few tricks to be played by soldiers. Thirty soldiers means 30 rifles, 30 pairs of boots and 30 military shirts and trousers.
INSPECTION IN THE OFFICE. The officer decided to inspect the 30 soldiers in his office. So he had the sergeant line up the soldiers and they came in one at a time to be inspected.
What was the error in this approach? He could not review all soldiers at one time. There may not have been 30 soldiers unless he counted. Inspection of clean rifles was flawed by the fact that the 30 soldiers passed 5 clean rifles among them. The officer did not know he had inspected only 5 rifles. This is a silly scenario as no officer would make such a mistake.
PUT EQUIPMENT IN A PILE. The platoon had just come back from an exercise. The officer told the sergeant to have the soldiers put their equipment in a pile outside the Q store. This was done by 30 soldiers. When the equipment was taken into the Q store, it was found there was only 26 items of equipment. It seemed that 4 had been taken away by soldiers.
What was the error? The equipment should not have been piled but handed in by each soldier and his name marked off. Now there is no way of knowing who had handed gear in. Better still, there should have been a parade outside the Q store with 3 rows of 10 soldiers standing beside their equipment. They could have left at that point with 3 rows of 10 pieces of equipment to be collected.
MAPS PASSED TO THE FRONT. The platoon was in the class room studying map reading with compasses. There were 15 maps and 15 compasses. At the end of the lesson, the officer had the soldiers pass maps and compasses to the front. After the lesson, he counted to find 15 maps and 9 compasses. The soldiers still had 6 compasses.
What error was made? The compasses and maps should have been collected desk by desk. Or the soldiers pass these one at a time to the front table. The equipment is counted and only then the soldiers are dismissed.
COUNTING THE TROOPS. In a military academy, the duty student had the task of reporting to the incoming staff member the number on roll 32 - number present 32. Should the instructor accept this advice?
What should he do? He should carry on with the lesson but quietly count the heads in the class. He already has the class numbers in his notebook. Yes there are 32 on roll but a count of heads reveals that there are only 29 present. The duty student has given wrong advice. This has been a double-check. When we double-check, we use a method independent of the original method.
CHECKING AN ID CARD. Let us focus on drivers' licences. In Papua New Guinea, a driver's licence has a photo and little other information. In other countries, the licence has the eye colour of the holder as well as date of birth.
How can a policemen check that the holder is the owner of the licence? He can check the photo but that is often unreliable. It is more effective to ask the driver who produces the licence the colour of his eyes. Ummm green. Sorry driver - blue. What is your birth date? I can not remember. Please get out of the car.
This is an independent check and double-check.
MISUSE OF EDUCATION CERTIFICATES. A training officer was given the task of processing 89 applicants for positions as security guards at a security firm. The key requirement was a grade 10 certificate and a clean police record.
He collected the certificates. Some were photocopies and others had been prepared by computer. That cut the list opf applicants to 64. He gave them a test with several questions not to test aptitude but to check on attendance at high school. (1) What is a class patron? (2) In what month is the English Written Expression exam and (3) What are tectonic plates? and several more.
Many applicants had no idea. They should know that the exam is in August. Some said they had forgotten after graduating two years before. Tectonic plates is a topic in Social Studies from grade 7 to grade 10. If they can not remember, they were never at high school. That cut the list of applicants to 23.
The big test was still waiting . Each remaining applicant was interviewed and asked questions about themselves. Holding their education certificates, the training officer asked each applicant a number of questions.
(1) What is your name? (2) Spell your name. (3) What was your school? (4) What subjects did you study? (5) What was the result for English and Mathematics? (6) Who was the Headmaster? Several applicants failed. This was not their certificate. Only 15 applicants got through to selection.
We have to realize that in all job applications certificates belonging to others will be used. The approach is to send the certificates to the Measurement Support Unit of the Department of Education but this takes time and does not prove that certificates belong to the rightful holders. This applies also to applicants to the PNGDF.
A quick approach like the police checking the license above, is to ask questions on the person the applicant claims to be. A driver's license has details a thief may not have bothered to memorize. So too educational certificates. People who misuse certificates may not have thought they have to memorize details to cover the possibility of being questioned on the information.
It is sad that a security guard has to be of Grade 10 standard for standing at a gate like a log. But a false certificate involves a false name to be used with police checks to be in error on the wrong person. The applicant may be a local raskol.
SECURITY AT THE FACTORY. There was a story many years ago of security guards at the gate of a factory. They saw a worker come through the gate every week pushing a wheelbarrow full of personal effects. They were sure he was stealing and searched the wheelbarrow each time. This went on for years.
Many years later a former security guard met the man at a hotel and asked what he was stealing. The man said he was stealing wheelbarrows.
This has to be a silly story. If wheel barrows were being stolen, management would have advised the security at the gate to keep a watch. Factory wheel barrrows would have to be painted in company colours with a number on the side. As well, the guards saw him go out in the afternoons. They never saw him come in each morning with the wheelbarrow. They only saw him go out. A silly story but useful to decide why it is silly.
THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS. At the end of World War 2, the British wanted to trick the Germans into believing that the D-Day invasion was further up the French coast and on a different date. So they found a dead body and put a trench coat on him with dark trousers and a briefcase chained to his wrist. They took him by submarine to the coast of France and pushed him into the water.
They had a letter to his girl friend in his wallet and a mess bill. They knew that the Germans would check. So they had a woman at the girl friend's address and a man at the phone at the officers' mess. Sure enough his body was found on the beach in France and passed to the Germans. They checked.
An agent rang the mess for Major So-and-so to be told he had checked out. The girl friend cried when an agent knocked at her door and told her of her friend's death.
The Germans were under pressure and accepted the dead body and the papers in his brief case. They started moving armaments north. The British knew the Germans had been tricked.
What do we learn from this? When the opposition stops checking, the tricking can start. The Germans knew they had to check and the British were waiting for them to send an agent to check. They could have checked more. When checking stops, the trick can win. It can be applied in many ways in this program.
BOMBING OF THE VILLAGE. In World War 2, the Germans knew there was a British spy in their headquarters. So they planned to trap the person. They sent out a signal about the ball bearing factory in the north of Norway. It was a fake message. They checked on who had access to the signal in the headquarters.
Sure enough a week later the British bombed the village and the fake factory. The Germans knew that the spy had passed the message on.
This is a checking procedure based on cause and effect. Let us press a button to see who reacts. It is another form of independent checking that will be followed up on this program.
DESTROY THE SUBMARINE. In World War 2, there was warfare against German submarines. On one occasion, a British destroyer made contact with a submarine and dropped depth charges. After half an hour, oil started to rise from the sea. The destroyer had been successful. The submarine was destroyed. But they were not to know that the submarine had oil in a torpedo tube and fired to give the false impression that it was oil from a destroyed submarine.
What should the captain of the destroyer do? Was oil independent evidence? No. But the destroyer was not to know that. The captain should have checked by underwater radar to identify destruction of a submarine. Radar would have been independent evidence. Not oil on the surface of the sea.
STEALING MONEY FROM THE MESS. Money being stolen from the officers' mess. Each night it was counted and money found to be missing in the morning. The police were notified and they set a trap of having the money coated with a dye after being put in the cash box.
Dye would appear on hands when mixed with sweat. Sure enough in the morning, two mess stewards had red dye on their hands.
This is again an example of checking by cause and effect. The cause was the dye. The effect was the dye on hands that could only belong to those stealing the money.
STOCK-TAKE OF MESSES. Why is is that all the messes on a military barracks are stock-taked at the same time on the same day and the same hour? There is the Officers' Mess, Sergeants' Mess and Soldiers' Mess.
If the messes were stock-taked on different days, the mess staff would be able to play tricks. They would move stock between the messes in time for the stock-take. One mess had lost 5 chairs and 12 cooking pots. These could be brought across from the Officers' Mess and taken back after the stock-take. The checking process would be totally inaccurate.
NUMBERS ON STOCK-TAKE SHEET. Why are the quantities of items not listed on the stock-take sheet. The reason is that the stock-take counters are supposed to count stock not just agree with what was on the sheet. There are 140 blankets on the stock sheet. That is correct. Did you count the blankets on the Q store shelves? No. It looks like 140 blankets.
This is a key scenario for checking. The responsibility for counting rests with the stock-take officer. He has to make sure the count is correct. This means that the stock-take counters must not be given the opportunity to play tricks. Accuracy must always be moving towards the person responsible not away from his control.
IS THE VEHICLE BOOKED? An officer had booked a vehicle with the transport section to take a group of officers to the airport. On the day before he phoned the transport NCO and asked " Corporal, is the vehicle booked for tomorrow at 7.00am. The NCO replied that it was. Next day, no vehicle arrived. When a check was made, the transport officer stated that the booking was made for the following day at 10am.
Who has made the error? It may be there was trickery going on at the transport section. But the officer had made an error in the question he asked. He had passed the responsibility for checking to the NCO. He should have asked " There is a vehicle booked for the Joint Training Wing for tomorrow. Is that true? Yes sir. For what time is it booked? 10am. Sorry that was for 7am. I will talk to the transport officer. Make sure it is at the Officers' mess at 7.am " Yes sir.
SMUGGLING ACROSS THE BORDER. There were two countries linked by a common border and crossed by a main highway, the only road between the countries. Both countries had customs officers at the border.
There was concern at a late model luxury vehicle that used to cross into the country every week. They knew it was the same vehicle because it was the same make, model and colour -white. It had the same number plates. The customs officers would search the vehicle certain the driver was smuggling. Nothing was found.
Then the neighbouring customs advised their neighbour of a ring that was smuggling the same colour, model and make of white luxury vehicle. Suddenly the penny dropped. The drivers were smuggling vehicles.
What error was made? It was assumed that the same number plates on the same make, model and colour luxury vehicle made it the same vehicle. But each time, it was a different vehicle. It was time to start checking chassis and engine number of each vehicle before arrests were made.
But the big error was that they only saw the vehicle entering the country. It never crossed the border the other way. It had to be a different vehicle each time with the same number plates. The driver would leave the vehicle and return across the border in another way with the number plates.
PLEASE EXCUSE MY DAUGHTER. A teacher received a letter to excuse a girl from school. The teacher could see that the letter may have been written not by the mother but by the girl's school friend. He asked the girl who cried and said that the letter was from her mother.
The next day, another letter arrived stating that the teacher should be ashamed of himself for questioning a mother. The teacher decided to drop the matter but keep the two letters on file for future reference.
Who made the error? Neither teacher nor girl made an error. The teacher questioned the author. The girl may have had a fake letter from her school friend. Was the second letter a double-check? No. It may have been a double-trick. It could not be a double check as the teacher was not in control of the letters. A letter writer from somewhere was in control.
PHANTOM NAMES ON THE PAY ROLL. Government organizations have phantom names on payroll with salaries paid into phantom bank accounts. The money is collected by various corrupt senior officers.
Who has made an error? It is difficult if those who could do the checking are the corrupt ones taking the phantom salaries. But surely Government Departments have employee lists in which someone in high places could cross check with the salary sheets.
REQUEST FOR COMPASSIONATE LEAVE. The adjutant receives a request for compassionate leave from a soldier to attend the funeral of his mother in the highlands. What does the adjutant do? Does he confirm the mother's death before granting leave. How does he do that? How does he prove to himself that the woman is the mother? Does he make a call on mobile phone? This may prove to be one situation that is uncheckable.
An adjutant needs to accept that deaths do occur and tricks for leave do occur. But it is all too difficult. The adjutant needs to consider that the problems of checking are greater than granting leave. Let it be. If the soldier wants leave every month, that is a problem.
THREE SCENARIOS - BEFORE, DURING, AFTER. Three checking scenarios are (1) Checking has to be done before a person is admitted to secure areas. (2) In response to a fire, a fire brigade checks during the process of going to the fire with sirens wailing and (3) In a combat situation, the soldier gives the pass word and does not receive a response. He fires and checks after as to who the person is.This is a key format for the checking process.
BUILT IN CHECKS AND DOUBLE-CHECKS. There are checks and double-checks built into many administrative documents. We find vertical and horizontal totals in cash books and PNGDF ration returns.
Doctors use checks and double-checks in diagnosis. Symptoms show that the patient has so-and-so disease. This can be double-checked by low blood pressure. A further double-check can be made on the level of albumen in the urine.
PERSONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE CHECKS. It is in the interests of individuals and organizations to be aware of a need to check and double-check in security of money, stores and information, claims of advertisers, track record of contractors, claims of door-to-door salemen, letters of recommendation, educational certificates, certificates of trade competency, workers come to fix the telephone and herbalists claiming to cure HIV/AIDS.
It may not always be possible to draw a conclusion in early stages. It may be possible to do progressive checks. Contractors may be terminated in a month. So too a worker in a company put on a 3 month trial period.
OPERATIONAL CHECKING. It is not always possible for police and military to carry out thorough checks before responding to a public report. They could be in danger from a terrorist group or criminals seeking to divert them. The report of the bank robbery is fake and intended to lure the police to the other side of town to be ambushed or for a bank robbery at another location.
There was the report of American soldiers lured up a valley to be ambushed by insurgents falsely reporting a meeting of senior insurgents. Only option may be for police and military to respond to reports but to take operationally secure measures where possible.
DO YOU THINK OFFICER CADETS ARE NOW THINKING PROBLEMS THROUGH?
The simplest illustration of a double-check is seen with addition of a column of figures;
7 + 3 + 4+ 8 = 23
Check
7 +3 + 4 + 8 = 22
Check again
7 + 3 + 4 + 8 = 22
Double-check
8 + 4 + 3 + 7 = 22
The answer is 22.
Remember: A double-check is independent of the first method of checking.
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