GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hi,

I've given a shot at analyzing an issue. It would be nice to know the pros and cons of my approach.
Bouquets and brick-bats are welcome! A rating would be an icing on the cake.

Thanks in advance!
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ESSAY QUESTION:
"In making a complex decision, one should trust experience more than instinct."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the position stated above. Support your viewpoint using reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

YOUR RESPONSE:
I agree that, in making a complex decision, one should trust experience. But, I would add that instinct is a secondary tool that could provide the right results, if used wisely, and hence should not be ignored.

Consider a situation, where a software program manager needs to make an educated guess, on whether or not to go ahead with a specific release, knowing fully well that the code is not yet mature and has not passed a complete set of regressions. With a looming deadline, the manager could either pull the plug or show the green flag, based on the status of the code and its relation to the various releases that were made in the past. This is where experience would come into the picture. But, the same manager may have to rely on intuition, to take a call on some parts of the code, which may be cutting edge and hence, entirely new, without precursors.

If decisions were solely based on experience, then such decisions are devoid of risk. Such decisions are tried and tested and hence foolproof. This makes a compelling argument for letting history drive the decision making process. But, consider a situation, in which Company X is under enormous pressure to make a scheduled product release and past history suggests that the company should move its deadline in order to have a product that is robust. Now, throw into this mix, a competitor who is neck and neck with the company and who is also on the threshold of releasing a similar, contending product. What if the CEO of the competitor decides to release the contending product, on an intuition that Company X would probably run into delays. While this situation may be hypothetical in my argument, it is probably happening on a daily basis in the real world. This is probably how start ups such as Google and Faceboook, to name a few, became household names in the 21st century. It is safe to assume that such companies used intuition to forge ahead of their well-established rivals.

In these times of fast changing technological landscapes, complex decisions need to be made under severe schedule pressures. These decisions have a high percentage of success, if the decision makers follow the formula of making such decisions based on experience. But, start-ups and individual entrepreneurs usually ride the "luck of the Irish" by implementing decisions based on intuition. Such decisions may break or break these companies, but such a risk is always aptly rewarded.