Complex systems and drifting into failure – further extracts from Dekker 2013

More extracts from Dekker’s 2013 paper ‘Drifting into failure’. These parts focus on some properties of complex systems (image 1), and how systems drift to failure (image 2). Extracts:·        “Open systems mean that it can be quite difficult to define the border of a system. What belongs to the system, and what doesn’t? This is known… Continue reading Complex systems and drifting into failure – further extracts from Dekker 2013

Drifting into failure: Complexity theory and the management of risk

2013 paper from Dekker discussing drift into failure. Nothing new if you’ve read his 2011 book. Extracts: ·    “organizations do not just fail because of component breakage or linear propagations of breakdowns. Instead, failure breeds opportunistically, non-randomly, among the very structures designed to protect an organization from disaster” ·    “A common pattern seems to be a drift… Continue reading Drifting into failure: Complexity theory and the management of risk