Technical b r Report - International Military Testing Association

merits. Inasmuch as the highly focused research efforts, that are in line
with project goals, are often well supported since, they are usually an adjunct
to a high-visibility, large project, that is good: The drawback, of course,
is that there is little general support for research not directly in evidence
of project goals. Research runs the constant riSk of being a necessary evil
in this model.
I won't shot: you Bryan's "Organic Yodel." There is little need to, for
consider a tree, if you willi'laden with lush fruits. Then consider its root
structure, seemingly dis0rganiz.d. ugly, and dirty. Then consider the roots
as what they are, the source of the hcalthv fruit: the roots that are often
misunderstood as to their function and their problems. That the roots can
isolate the proper nutrients that are necessarv for effective fruit production
is without question. Also without question is the fact that indiscriminate
root pruning will almost certainly lave adverse effect upon the fruit.
Bryan's tree is more an analogy than a model. It is too simple to portray
in any real sense of the world what the interaction between management and
research is: it merely portrays what it should be.
And this, perhaps, is the reason that we live In a world of linears,
departmental, and project models--variations, perhaps, of those described.
X reasoned approach by management is necessary to bring about precisely that
fine-grained relationship of mutual respect withfn organizations among its
major functionaries. The cartoon she-zing the manager in his plush office
speaking to a person in a laboratory coat, and bearing the caption: "You
researchers--make some kind of a breakthrough!" has got to cease being funny.
,
It would seem to rnz that the underslanding of the RhD function, the
placement of that function within the dy; amics of the organization, and the
understanding by management that reasoned direction is reouired will bring
the closure we all seek and elim!nate thy need to worry about the translation
problems between training research and training actions.
I
. , .
107