Archetype

De brug van Honduras

Problemen verplaatsen zich

De wereld is niet alleen complex, maar ook zeer dynamisch en dus veranderlijk. Soms proberen we een probleem op te lossen, maar zodra dat gebeurd is blijkt het probleem zich verplaatst te hebben of duikt er een nieuw probleem op. Men spreekt weleens van de ‘Wet van Behoud van Ellende’. Een interessant voorbeeld hiervan is de brug van Honduras. De brug was zodanig ontworpen en gebouwd dat het de ergste orkanen moest kunnen doorstaan. Tijdens de orkaan Mitch bleek de brug inderdaad van uitstekende kwaliteit. Jammer genoeg bleek na de overstroming dat de loop van de rivier een paar honderd meter was verplaatst, waardoor de brug niet meer over de rivier lag, maar ernaast…

4 most recent lessons

1.

Biomass power plants: redundant or inevitable?

It was thought that this was going to be a game changer that would allow us to meet the climate targets, but that seems to be debatable. The government was too quick to spend billions.

2.

MEE Samen wants to help turn healthcare around

Initially, the problem was that it was not possible organisationally. To solve this, care organisations had to participate in a pilot project to involve social networks in a different way in care, which created another problem: people in care were not open to this.

3.

Will tomorrow's people over 80 still be willing to pay for a good old age?

You think you have addressed a problem, but then a new one arises. In this case, it was the unwillingness to pay for the service.

4.

Energy Transition Woerden

The hoped-for savings in the gas grid turned out to entail investments in the (local and regional) electricity network many times over. If all 900 homes in this district were to use electricity for all their needs (lighting, heating, transport, etc), cables in the district, meter boxes in the district, but also transformer stations in the region and even the regional distribution station would have to be reinforced. These regional reinforcements would then no longer be required for each subsequent district, but would result in investments almost 10 times greater than the initial estimated savings.