science

Sense and respond

Sense and respond is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sense and respond rather than just read about it. In short: Sense and respond has been used in control theory for several decades, primarily in closed systems such as refineries where comparisons are made between measurements and desired values, and system settings are adjusted to narrow the gap between the two. Since the early 1980s, sense and respond has also been used to describe the behavior of certain open systems.

Key takeaways

Sense and respond belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sense and respond to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sense and respond from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sense and respond has been used in control theory for several decades, primarily in closed systems such as refineries where comparisons are made between measurements and desired values, and system settings are adjusted to narrow the gap between the two. Since the early 1980s, sense and respond has also been used to describe the behavior of certain open systems. Sense and respond is based on lean principles and follows URSLIMM:

U - understand customer value R - remove waste S - standardize L - learn by doing I - involve everyone M - measure what matters M - manage performance visually The term "sense and respond" as a business concept was used in a 1992 American Management Association Management Review article by Stephan H. Haeckel. It was developed by Haeckel at IBM’s Advanced Business Institute.

Publications 2010 “The Post-Industrial Manager,” Marketing Management Magazine, Fall, 2010, pp 24–32. 2003 “Leading On Demand Businesses – Executives as Architects,” IBM Systems Journal, Vol 42, No 3, 2003, pp 405–413 2003 “Making Meaning Out of Apparent Noise,” in Long Range Planning, April, 2004, Special Issue of articles from May 4, 2003 Wharton Conference “Peripheral Vision: Sensing and Acting on Weak Signals,” Vol 37/2 pp 181–189 2000 “Managing Knowledge in Adaptive Enterprises,” Chapter in Knowledge Horizons: The Present and the Promise of Knowledge Management, edited by C. Despres and D. Chauvel, Butterworth-Heinemann 1999 Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense-and-Respond Organizations, Harvard Business School Press 1993 “Managing By Wire,” Harvard Business Review: Vol. 71, No. 5, September–October (with R.L. Nolan) 1992 “From ‘Make and Sell’ to ‘Sense and Respond,’” Management Review, American Management Association, October

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sense and respond

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sense and respond claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sense and respond before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sense and respond ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sense and respond

In research: Sense and respond appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sense and respond in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sense and respond is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Control theory, Management, Management stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sense and respond outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sense and respond in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sense and respond means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sense and respond out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sense and respond in simple terms?

Why does Sense and respond matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sense and respond?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sense and respond.