‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

I don't want the details

466 points · 226 comments · mooreds

  1. scsh · · focus · HN ↗
    > To drive change in your organization, don't ask "why did this happen?".

    > Instead, ask:

    > What are we changing so that the same class of failure is less likely next time?

    Why are these framed as being almost mutually exclusive? I don't get it. "How/why did this happen?" informs how you answer "What are we changing?" Even the following section, "Reasonable people", functions in this way with a "Why did this happen?" followed by "What are we changing?".

    Just feels like this article has some internal conflict with itself in order to achieve a "don't do that, do this" type of style.

    1. MisterMunchkin · · focus · HN ↗
      Because answering the “why” feels like you’ve achieved something. You all blame Gary, pat yourselves on the back and then go home satisfied.

      It’s like when cloudflare does a blog post saying they were out for three days and it was because they let someone slopcode the DNS. How has that achieved anything? It will go down again the following week. The customers want to know how you will prevent it happening again, they don’t really care how entertaining your blog is.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.