How Complex Systems Fail

(Being a Short Treatise on the Nature of Failure; How Failure is Evaluated; How Failure is Attributed to Proximate Cause; and the Resulting New Understanding of Patient Safety)—Richard I. Cook, MD

Talk — Paper

If you’re one of the many who wake up screaming “WHY IS EVERYTHING BROKEN”, this might be quite cathartic. Richard Cook isn’t a programmer but he has a fascinating insight into what makes complex systems work, and occasionally fail. Although grounded in experiences in healthcare, this perfectly describes the crazed world many developers fear: Operations