Automated controls endure
Manual controls erode; automated ones endure
The initial remedies in an RCA I reviewed this week leaned on humans remembering to do the right thing under pressure — pre-checks, sign-offs, coordination steps. Those degrade exactly when you need them most: mid-incident, at 2 a.m., during a rushed hot fix. The durable fix is almost always architectural — prevent the unsafe thing rather than discouraging it.
Takeaway: Rank your fixes by how little they depend on human vigilance. Automate the guardrail; use the checklist as backstop, not front line.
Prioritization
Prioritization is often deciding what to defer — and ownership is what makes deferral safe
With a couple of key people out this week, my job wasn’t doing more; it was deciding what could wait. I pushed an external partner conversation out until the right decision-maker was back, and canceled meetings that couldn’t be productive without them. But deferral only works if someone clearly owns the thing you’re deferring. When a work stream stalled, the unlock wasn’t a new plan — it was naming, out loud, who was driving it while its usual owner was away.
Takeaway: Saying “not now” is a leadership act, but it’s only safe when paired with “and here’s who owns it in the meantime.”
People and process problems come before technology problems. Fix the system and the people around it, and the technology tends to follow.
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