4 ms·

Are there actually people on the other side of this argument? Like, is there someone who is saying "Immediately do a root cause analysis — just that, and nothin

by chc 8y ago

Are there actually people on the other side of this argument? Like, is there someone who is saying "Immediately do a root cause analysis — just that, and nothing else — no matter what the situation is"? This seems obvious on the same level as "a piece of kale is not suitable for use as a pacemaker."

jlgaddis 8y ago
As the author apparently felt that he needed to write such an article, I am assuming there are -- or were, at least (the article is from 2011).
williamdclt 8y ago
Yes and no. First, I think the author is (as someone else said and as you seem to agree) raising a strawman. Second, I don't think there are people on the other side of the argument, but there are people on the other side in situ: I mean that even if rationally they would never admit it, they hijack the immediate "fire extinguishing" or "pulling of the plug" or "pumping of water" to discuss where the problem is coming from. I've seen those people lacking discernment, not only do they get in the way of the short-term action, they also are pretty bad at cause analysis and confound it with blaming people or "I told you so". This is a generalization of course, but the TLDR is that even if those people wouldn't argue against it, they act against it.
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  This. Its highly problematic when these people are in positions where they are able to derail efforts to stabilize by insisting upon RCA first-and-only. Seen this everywhere. Been on both sides of this. Learned to be humble from the experience.
hpcjoe 8y ago
Unfortunately, there are folks who jump right to the RCA, with often devastating impact upon their ability to deliver functional products reliably and on time. Moreover, when doing an RCA, you need to be able to objectively examine every aspect of the decision making, implementation, and execution tree. Not allowing every decision to be questioned and reviewed means you enable a route for poor decisions driven by other than business/technical needs to enter in. The irony in this, is that these non-questionable, sacred-cow like requirements, which cannot be investigated without causing sturm und drang as well as profound political problems, are often themselves, the root cause of multiple/many problems that one encounters. That you cannot investigate the entire space of issues means that there will be regions of terra incognita for your analysis. I've seen this at every single company I've ever worked at. Including my own startup. Much of what I learned about this came from my time at SGI/Cray, where specific holy grails could not be questioned. It is very ... very ... hard, to admit that your systems could somehow be problematic. It is tremendously humbling to see conclusive proof. It changes your engineering mind set when you do accept this, from being defensive to something better. Your architectures improve, your assumptions are less WAG-ish.

by chc 8y ago

jlgaddis 8y ago

As the author apparently felt that he needed to write such an article, I am assuming there are -- or were, at least (the article is from 2011).

williamdclt 8y ago

Yes and no. First, I think the author is (as someone else said and as you seem to agree) raising a strawman. Second, I don't think there are people on the other side of the argument, but there are people on the other side in situ: I mean that even if rationally they would never admit it, they hijack the immediate "fire extinguishing" or "pulling of the plug" or "pumping of water" to discuss where the problem is coming from. I've seen those people lacking discernment, not only do they get in the way of the short-term action, they also are pretty bad at cause analysis and confound it with blaming people or "I told you so". This is a generalization of course, but the TLDR is that even if those people wouldn't argue against it, they act against it.

hpcjoe 8y ago
This. Its highly problematic when these people are in positions where they are able to derail efforts to stabilize by insisting upon RCA first-and-only. Seen this everywhere. Been on both sides of this. Learned to be humble from the experience.

hpcjoe 8y ago

Unfortunately, there are folks who jump right to the RCA, with often devastating impact upon their ability to deliver functional products reliably and on time. Moreover, when doing an RCA, you need to be able to objectively examine every aspect of the decision making, implementation, and execution tree. Not allowing every decision to be questioned and reviewed means you enable a route for poor decisions driven by other than business/technical needs to enter in. The irony in this, is that these non-questionable, sacred-cow like requirements, which cannot be investigated without causing sturm und drang as well as profound political problems, are often themselves, the root cause of multiple/many problems that one encounters. That you cannot investigate the entire space of issues means that there will be regions of terra incognita for your analysis. I've seen this at every single company I've ever worked at. Including my own startup. Much of what I learned about this came from my time at SGI/Cray, where specific holy grails could not be questioned. It is very ... very ... hard, to admit that your systems could somehow be problematic. It is tremendously humbling to see conclusive proof. It changes your engineering mind set when you do accept this, from being defensive to something better. Your architectures improve, your assumptions are less WAG-ish.