"Satisficing" and Montreal 2016

[Dennis Piechota]

Looking forward to the AIC/CAC 2016 Annual Conference to be held this May in Montreal. Its theme is an unfortunately timely one: 'Emergency! Preparing for Disasters and Confronting the Unexpected in Conservation.'

I am sure there will be valuable discussions on the practical aspects of emergencies, on preparing for them, and mitigating them. But given my predilection for theory I will also be looking for hints of the intellectual framework we bring to such situations.

Specifically, I will be interested in whether the concept of 'satisficing' will be discussed as part of emergency management. The word is a portmanteau made from 'satis-fy' and 'suf-fice' and was originally coined by economists to describe a kind of decisionmaking process common to high stress situations. 

Satisficing may be thought of as Choose/Test/Act: 

1- To satisfy a dire need CHOOSE the first likely option. 

2- Do a quick TEST to confirm that that choice is sufficient. 

3- If sufficient ACT to solve the pressing problem. Only if the first choice fails the test does one go on to explore second options.

Satisficing is used by firefighters who, lacking the time to research the construction history of a burning building, use their experience and knowledge to choose the first door that looks safe and promising. After testing that the door is not too hot to the touch they enter to rescue life and property. 

Conservators, like all emergency workers must 'satisfice' from time to time, whether mitigating true disasters or simply when encountering unexpected problems far from the lab.

Why focus on 'satisficing'? I think that discussing such a concept may also help us explore all the types of stress that permit and even demand less rigorous standards of pre-treatment or pre-triage research than we expect for routine bench treatments.

I hope to see you in Montreal!

Dennis

[Dennis Piechota]

Montreal 2016 was a great AIC meeting. There were many fine talks on emergency preparedness, response and recovery. As expected there was no direct reference to 'satisficing' in any of the presentations I attended. However I did realize that this concept is the basis for a common tool in conservation: the artifact and collection survey. Whenever we place an artifact in a pre-defined category we perform all three steps of the satisficing thought process. We choose particular traits to define artifacts and that categorization process assigns particular conservation actions. This lumping technique is very different from the way we develop artifact uniqueness in our customary pre-treatment research. In the context of emergency response the survey of a damaged collection can be a necessary part of the triage step designed to marshal limited time and resources. Conceptually it is the opposite of what we do when we are not under duress. We justifiably take pride in avoiding recipes, in tailoring the unique treatment to the unique object. Montreal reminds that when necessary we also do the opposite, fit the artifact to a pre-defined category that leads to a common treatment action.

Dennis 

[Elizabeth Nunan]

I've never heard "satisficing" but it instantly reminded me of risk assessment. Risk assessment ultimately leads stakeholders to determining what is an "acceptable loss in value" for a given budget/preservation plan - or what is "sufficient" under the budgetary circumstances. Conservators conducting risk assessments act as a sort of pre-filter to provide stakeholders/administrators with what the likely options are (step 1, or what to CHOOSE in your Choose/Test/Act process). Ideally, risk assessment wouldn't be used in a high-stress situation, but budgets are budgets and museum funding is often uncertain.

I definitely think a discussion on this kind of decision-making process would be very useful for collections professionals trained in disaster preparedness, as the inability to prioritize triage actions is something I see conservators especially struggle with over and over again during disaster response workshops. It relates to your recent "fear" post - it is difficult for us to decide that an action is "good enough" or sufficient, when we view our decisions from the eyes of colleagues judging us 100 years (or even 100 days) down the line... 

Thanks for the brainfood Dennis!

Beth Nunan

Alliance for Response NYC

www.afrnyc.org

On Monday, March 28, 2016 at 3:47:02 PM UTC-4, Dennis Piechota wrote: