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The mistake is not that one might make an error, everyone will make errors. The mistake is the system that enables an individual contributor to make such an err
by bigmattystyles 7y ago
The mistake is not that one might make an error, everyone will make errors. The mistake is the system that enables an individual contributor to make such an error without any accounting for these normal errors to occur. Second, blaming the person is just scapegoating and a further failure of a flawed system trying to cya.
- spookthesunset 7y agoExactly. If all it takes is one person to misplace a decimal or fsck up a calculation and your entire end product is fucked... brother that ain’t you, it’s the system that is fucked. For any system that matters, you have to prevent a single (or multiple) failures from sinking it. Any new failure that happens should be evaluated in a blameless manner and solved by improving the system so mistakes of that class cannot happen again.
- jessaustin 7y agoI don't know the specifics for thread parent, but on many construction projects there is only one engineer, and even that engineer may be a sub to an architect. In my experience, architects are offended at the suggestion that they check the work of engineers, and engineers are offended by questions from clients. So, entirely due to the emotional preferences of the "one person", that one person is really totally responsible for a great deal.
- bigmattystyles 7y agoI know it’s easier said than done but a good system should recognize and mitigate those personalities.
- MR4D 7y agoMakes it impressive how SpaceX can iterate so fast on designs and yet have few of these types of errors. It seems they understand their failures before they happen.
- simonh 7y agoI don't think that's warranted, SpaceX has lost several vehicles and missions to theoretically avoidable mistakes.
- btrettel 7y agoHow can a culture of checking for errors be developed where none exists?
- jbms 7y agoSome ideas: Hire people (on good money) with the personality type that likes to find problems. If the team is all composed of "Mr Right-Now" and no "Mr Right" personality types then it will move very fast and have lots of issues. A diverse team helps. TDD tries to insist tests are developed first, partly to ensure they're not skipped. Reinforce the message: "Measure twice, cut once". Good leadership and top-down support to make changes are important. If they won't care enough to stump up the money and follow through to check it's happening, don't expect much change.