When new socio-technical systems are offered on the promise of being more reliable and sustainable, then having established a track record in preventing system failures becomes even more critical

At best, socio-technical systems are reliable only until the next failure ahead. This means that preventing that next failure is just as important for establishing a track record in failure prevention as future failures being prevented because, say, the systems are more sustainable than now.

Further, this is a track record of real-time system operators who manage reliably because they learn and unlearn. They are reliable because (not in spite) of learning that they didn’t know what they initially thought they knew, they in fact knew more than they had first thought, or both.

What a senior risk manager told us applies to the challenge of reliability management in key socio-technical systems, now and ahead: “Really, just because we haven’t had a meltdown doesn’t mean our practices were effective”.