Why is it called "Elephant Builder"?
There's an old folktale about a group of blind people who are trying to describe an elephant.
One is standing by a leg. He says, "Hey, an elephant is thick and stationary. It's basically a tree." Another, by the tail, says,
"Nope. It's thin and flexible, like a snake." The one by the trunk says it's like a python, and the one on its back says it's like a hillside.
None of these people is wrong—each has expertise about part of the larger animal. But to truly understand the elephant and predict its
behavior, they'll need some method of synthesizing their knowledge and collectively visualizing how it all fits together.
That's what the Elephant Builder does. It takes many people's perspectives, many departments' expertise, many groups' experiences—
and builds a more integrated understanding of the whole system.
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