|
|
The Broken Watch: A Lesson in System Documentation
By Blake Young |
I have a Citizen watch that I have owned for decades. |
I love the watch for both the quality of the watch and for the sentimental value it holds. |
|
The problem with this watch is that it has a broken component in its movement, which makes it so it doesn't keep time well, and the stopwatch mechanism doesn't complete one minute of timing. |
I have taken it to multiple places to get it repaired, and the real issue lies in the fact that parts available for this older watch are scarce. They also did not document watches in the 90s very well, so it is nearly impossible to know what part is needed, let alone find it on the secondary market. |
I even tried to find a "broken" watch that I could harvest the parts from, but no luck. |
So now I have, as the saying goes, a watch that only tells the correct time twice a day. I can replace the battery every three months or so and have a partially functioning timepiece. |
This seems like a lot of effort and not a logical thing to do, but I don't think I can get rid of it as it has the sentimental value. |
This broken watch has taught me something valuable about trading systems. At one point, the watch worked nearly perfectly. |
Every movement, wheel, and cog did its part to provide precision in timekeeping. |
When a part broke, the choice became clear: get a new watch or repair the watch. We cannot repair the watch due to the lack of documentation. |
Without knowing which specific part failed or where to source it, we are left to abandon the old watch and get a new one. |
Trading systems work the same way. We may have a system or trading rules that deliver profitability with precision. |
That system could work for days, weeks, months, years, and even decades. |
But when the system breaks or begins to underperform due to one of the parts not functioning, we cannot go on trusting the output just because it worked in the past. Our choice is to build a new system or fix the current one by replacing what is broken. |
Here is where many traders find themselves without documentation. |
Documentation is the key to repair. A well-documented system will record all the parts and how they work together, as well as the details of each part. |
A documented system shows the trade results, the indicators and information used to create the system, and the precise value of the indicators or any filters the system might use. |
If we don't know what parts went into our systems, we cannot know what is broken or how to replace the broken parts. We will know only that we are not getting trustworthy results from the system. |
That realization only comes after experiencing excessive losses. |
If we know our system and have documented it, we might only have to change one small movement, tighten one screw, or replace one spring. Our system will function again. |
If it is truly broken beyond repair, we should not let sentiment and memories of the past keep us hanging on to our broken system because it worked before. |
We should never have sentimental feelings about any of our systems. If you have a system that has worked, document it. |
Know your system well enough that you have the choice to fix it when it breaks, because systems eventually break. |
As system traders, we need to recognize when a system is broken and then either fix it or move on. I hold no sentimental value for any method or system I have learned or developed. |
The system either has utility or has no value to me. |
However, I will likely keep this watch for my entire life for its sentimental value. It also serves as a constant reminder that a system that isn't functioning has no real value. |
Even a broken watch tells the correct time twice a day, but that doesn't make it useful. |
Blake Young
Senior Market Strategist, TheoTRADE |
0 Response to "The Broken Watch: A Lesson in System Documentation"
Post a Comment