Customer: “I’ve been doing risk analysis by
hand for
five years, and we finally got your program so we could do
it
automatically — but there’s a bug in it. The answers come out
differently each
time.”
Tech Support: “Sir, are you aware that
our program uses Monte-Carlo
analysis?”
Customer: “Of course I
am. That’s why I bought it.”
Tech Support: “Sir, do you know what
Monte-Carlo analysis does?”
Customer: “Don’t get rude with me, of
course I do.”
Tech Support: “Put briefly, sir, it runs through your
project several
times, throwing random delays in, and at the end it
averages out the
results.”
Customer: “I know all that — what I
want to know is why it keeps
giving me different answers every time
I run it.”