Mark - you are misinterpreting probability and mis-using the term “likely”. I get what you are trying to say but it’s wrong. May I suggest that instead of trying to defend your position, you think about the feedback you are getting. you asked the question - we are answering it. Learning requires that we challenge our thinking not seek to confirm it.
First, the example of sales that you sight is an extreme and not a reflection of actual reality. Companies do not launch products thinking that they will only sell 10. Nor will their concern increase if they sell more. IF failures were randomly distributed, then the probability of a death in the first 10 is exactly the same as in the first million. That is just how probability works even if we wish it didn’t.
Secondly, failures are very rarely randomly distributed. This ‘assumption’ is a teaching ideal, not a reflection of actual reality. Failures are caused by physical mechanisms that are most often clustered and non-homogenous. They are not independent of each other...they do not ‘magically ‘ occur.
Most importantly the whole concept of a trying to determine the ‘probability’ of a failure before it happens is fundamentally flawed. It is impossible and is usually grossly underestimated under-guessed.
Like it or not the truth is that the probability of a death doesn’t change as you sell more. I sense that you are trying to use this to make some point in your organization - perhaps to get people to pay more attention to mitigating high severity/high hazard things? So, perhaps it would be more productive to discuss what your real point is? Why does this ‘probability’ matter to you? How would you use this personal interpretation?
First, the example of sales that you sight is an extreme and not a reflection of actual reality. Companies do not launch products thinking that they will only sell 10. Nor will their concern increase if they sell more. IF failures were randomly distributed, then the probability of a death in the first 10 is exactly the same as in the first million. That is just how probability works even if we wish it didn’t.
Secondly, failures are very rarely randomly distributed. This ‘assumption’ is a teaching ideal, not a reflection of actual reality. Failures are caused by physical mechanisms that are most often clustered and non-homogenous. They are not independent of each other...they do not ‘magically ‘ occur.
Most importantly the whole concept of a trying to determine the ‘probability’ of a failure before it happens is fundamentally flawed. It is impossible and is usually grossly underestimated under-guessed.
Like it or not the truth is that the probability of a death doesn’t change as you sell more. I sense that you are trying to use this to make some point in your organization - perhaps to get people to pay more attention to mitigating high severity/high hazard things? So, perhaps it would be more productive to discuss what your real point is? Why does this ‘probability’ matter to you? How would you use this personal interpretation?