Rescuing error from uncertainty

I

How do you know you’ve made a mistake if caught in the grip of everything seemingly uncertain? You know better after the fact, when consequences are clearer. But how do you know in real time that this or that action is a mistake to be avoided in the fog of war or some all around you?

It is important, I think, to insist that real-time error avoidance is still possible even under conditions of widespread systemwide complexity and uncertainties (and not via a–much?–later hindsight).

II

Paul Schulman and I recently undertook research on a set of interconnected critical infrastructures in Oregon and Washington State. We ended up focusing on key interconnectivity patterns and shifts in those configurations with respect to systemwide control variables (think electricity frequency or water main pressures). We also focused on shifting performance standards as operating conditions shifted from normal, through disrupted, into failed, then if possible into recovery and a new normal for the interconnected systems.

The upshot is that not only do major uncertainties and risks change with shifting interconnectivities, but errors to be avoided emerge as well, and clearly so.

For staff in the interconnected critical infrastructures, there are conditions under which it is a shared error for infrastructure operators not to micro-coordinate by way of improvising and communicating laterally (not just up and down a chain of incident command). This holds even if (especially if) emergency response and initial service restoration are not guaranteed after an interinfrastructural shock.

III

So what?

I know I have been too casual in wielding about broad descriptions of “systemwide uncertainty, complexity, and conflict.” Error avoidance, in contrast, can be a far better site indicator for management-on-the-ground.

Source

E. Roe and P.R. Schulman (2023). “An Interconnectivity Framework for Analyzing and Demarcating Real-Time Operations Across Critical Infrastructures and Over Time.” Safety Science online.