06
Aug
The Humility of Reliable Systems
Reality has never cared how confident the system felt before the lights went out.
8 min read
News
04
Aug
Monday Myth: Performance Comes from Power
True Engineers rarely optimise machines because they admire elegance. They optimise economics.
4 min read
02
Aug
Friday Fun: The Committee That Replaced the Thermometer
The first industrial revolution did not merely require bigger machines. It required machines that behaved predictably. Steam engines demanded repeatable boiler pressures. Steel mills demanded consistent furnace temperatures.
4 min read
28
Jul
Monday Myth: "Our Application Is Complex"
Perhaps software never suffered from an unusual abundance of complexity. Perhaps it suffered from an unusual willingness to admire it.
6 min read
26
Jul
Friday Fun: The Corporate Weather Office
The Corporate Weather Office occupied the fourth floor of the Ministry because weather had, over time, acquired considerable strategic importance.
4 min read
23
Jul
Wednesday Reality: Control Has Mass
Modern organisations rather than improving the architecture of work, increase the number of people watching it.
9 min read
19
Jul
Friday Fun: The Office Escape Room
Long before escape rooms became fashionable corporate team-building exercises, engineers, locksmiths and craftsmen had been designing mechanical puzzle boxes whose sole purpose was to challenge the human mind
3 min read
16
Jul
Wednesday Reality: Engineering Begins Where Certainty Ends
Neither the Royal Navy nor NASA expected reality to honour their plans. Charts remained incomplete. Weather changed without warning. Equipment failed. Calculations drifted. Human judgement remained imperfect.
4 min read
13
Jul
Monday Myth: Great Organisations Feel Dynamic
The highest compliment a passenger can give aviation is that nothing memorable happened.
Perhaps the highest compliment customers can give an engineering organisation is exactly the same.
5 min read
12
Jul
Friday Fun: The Corporate Airport
Many organisations, however, quietly make that mistake, becoming exceptionally good at refining coordination, governance and process while gradually forgetting that these things exist only to support delivery
5 min read