The Engineer's logic test

I have labeled this approach the Engineer's logic test in honor of my father, an engineer, who taught it to me. What he told me was that “after you have done the calculations, solved the equations, and done the math you need to step back and ask the question, 'Does this solution make sense.'” Being confident of our conclusion does not mean it is right. Being confident that someone's recommendation is usually right doesn't mean it is right in a particular situation. A few examples:

• To cancel or (adjust) or not to cancel an event. It may seem if there are too few signed up for the event to go forward – but what is the pattern for the congregation? Is it common for 2 or 3 times as many people to sign up late or just show up without making a commitment by the deadline? Or conversely, does it look like there are enough signed up to go ahead but the congregation has a history of last minute cancellations.
  
• One year I made the mistake of letting high school student talk me into letting them go on a Middle School Unknown Destination Trip. They all promised they would do it, so I made the appropriate preparations including chartering a tour bus. But if I had applied the logic text I would have realized that High School youth would not be able to go on the trip because of other obligations. I lost a lot of money on that trip.
  
• In one church a group prepared a spreadsheet (“Ooh, a spreadsheet, it must be true”) which suggested in October that there would be a major deficit by the end of the year and therefore some of the church staff should be laid off. Applying the Engineer's Logic Test I reasoned: 1) there have been no major changes in our financial position from the last year 2) the last year was in the black therefore we would expect this year to be in the black. This caused me to question the spreadsheet. It turned out that the calculations were based on income for Nov and Dec being 1/12 of the total pledges. That's not the way that congregation operated. Plugging in more reasonable figures for those two month projected a small surplus rather than a deficit. Bottom line, they Session didn't lay off the staff and we ended the year with a small surplus.