How Complex Systems Fail @ComplexHow
The 18 points contained in "How Complex Systems Fail" by Dr. Richard Cook (@ri_cook) in tweet form. adaptivecapacitylabs.com/HowComplexSyst… Joined May 2019-
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The frequency of hazard exposure can sometimes be changed but the processes involved in the system are themselves intrinsically and irreducibly hazardous. It is the presence of these hazards that drives the creation of defenses against hazard that characterize these systems.
1→Complex systems are intrinsically hazardous systems All of the interesting systems (e.g. transportation, healthcare, power generation, etc.) are inherently and unavoidably hazardous by the own nature.
...but also a variety of organizational, institutional, and regulatory defenses (e.g. policies and procedures, certification, work rules, team training). The effect of these measures is to provide a series of shields that normally divert operations away from accidents.
These defenses include obvious technical components (e.g. backup systems, ‘safety’ features of equipment) and human components (e.g. training, knowledge)...
2→Complex systems are heavily and successfully defended against failure The high consequences of failure lead over time to the construction of multiple layers of defense against failure.
Most initial failure trajectories are blocked by designed system safety components. Trajectories that reach the operational level are mostly blocked, usually by practitioners.
Each of these small failures is necessary to cause catastrophe but only the combination is sufficient to permit failure. Put another way, there are many more failure opportunities than overt system accidents.
3→Catastrophe requires multiple failures–single point failures are not enough The array of defenses works. System operations are generally successful. Overt catastrophic failure occurs when small, apparently innocuous failures join to create opportunity for a systemic accident.
The failures change constantly because of changing technology, work organization, and efforts to eradicate failures.
Eradication of all latent failures is limited primarily by economic cost but also because it is difficult before the fact to see how such failures might contribute to an accident.
4→Complex systems contain changing mixtures of failures latent within them The complexity of these systems makes it impossible for them to run without multiple flaws being present.
Arguments that these degraded conditions should have been recognized before the overt accident are usually predicated on naïve notions of system performance. System operations are dynamic, with components (organizational, human, technical) failing and being replaced continuously.
After accident reviews nearly always note that the system has a history of prior ‘proto-accidents’ that nearly generated catastrophe.
5→Complex systems run in degraded mode. A corollary to the preceding point is that complex systems run as broken systems. The system continues to function because it contains so many redundancies and because people can make it function, despite the presence of many flaws.
The potential for catastrophic outcome is a hallmark of complex systems. It is impossible to eliminate the potential for such catastrophic failure; the potential for such failure is always present by the system’s own nature.
6→Catastrophe is always just around the corner Complex systems possess potential for catastrophic failure. Human practitioners are nearly always in close physical and temporal proximity to these potential failures – disaster can occur at any time and in nearly any place.
The evaluations based on such reasoning as ‘root cause’ do not reflect a technical understanding of the nature of failure but rather the social, cultural need to blame specific, localized forces or events for outcomes.
Thus, no isolation of the ‘root cause’ of an accident is possible.
7→Post-accident attribution accident to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally wrong Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated ‘cause’ of an accident. There are multiple contributors to accidents.
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