John Allspaw
@allspaw.bsky.social
Cofounder, @AdaptiveCLabs, “the NTSB of Tech” bringing Resilience Engineering to industry. he/him. Won’t speak on all-male panels, and #blacklivesmatter.
Does anyone have first-hand experience with using an AI agent that has “participated” in the response to an actual incident in a genuinely diagnostic — or otherwise contextually-specific way?
October 7, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Does anyone have first-hand experience with using an AI agent that has “participated” in the response to an actual incident in a genuinely diagnostic — or otherwise contextually-specific way?
There are a couple of phrases I genuinely despise. One of them is "...we're at an inflection point..."
1. That's not how inflection points work.
2. Hindsight's a helluva drug, isn't it?
3. Just say you are at a loss to explain some recent surprises. It's honest and not unnecessarily dramatic.
1. That's not how inflection points work.
2. Hindsight's a helluva drug, isn't it?
3. Just say you are at a loss to explain some recent surprises. It's honest and not unnecessarily dramatic.
October 5, 2025 at 8:10 PM
There are a couple of phrases I genuinely despise. One of them is "...we're at an inflection point..."
1. That's not how inflection points work.
2. Hindsight's a helluva drug, isn't it?
3. Just say you are at a loss to explain some recent surprises. It's honest and not unnecessarily dramatic.
1. That's not how inflection points work.
2. Hindsight's a helluva drug, isn't it?
3. Just say you are at a loss to explain some recent surprises. It's honest and not unnecessarily dramatic.
@staysaasy.bsky.social I’m not on X very much, finally collected notes on the post docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Misunderstanding the blameless postmortem post
Accountability vs. Punishment The biggest misunderstanding is that it seems like you’re conflating "blameless" with "no accountability." Your post claims that blameless cultures mean "people believe...
docs.google.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:33 PM
@staysaasy.bsky.social I’m not on X very much, finally collected notes on the post docs.google.com/document/d/1...
For leaders with expectations about how more productive, efficient, etc. the software engineers in their org will be with AI:
1. How are you handling the "Left-Over Principle" challenges?
2. Also: customer comms about the incidents involving code produced AI?
(Seems clear #2 is depends on #1)
1. How are you handling the "Left-Over Principle" challenges?
2. Also: customer comms about the incidents involving code produced AI?
(Seems clear #2 is depends on #1)
August 21, 2025 at 12:01 PM
For leaders with expectations about how more productive, efficient, etc. the software engineers in their org will be with AI:
1. How are you handling the "Left-Over Principle" challenges?
2. Also: customer comms about the incidents involving code produced AI?
(Seems clear #2 is depends on #1)
1. How are you handling the "Left-Over Principle" challenges?
2. Also: customer comms about the incidents involving code produced AI?
(Seems clear #2 is depends on #1)
Reposted by John Allspaw
Another real life demonstration of Ironies of Automation
This is pretty funny. The teleoperated Optimus popcorn server appears to have a full-time sweeper. How efficient....
August 1, 2025 at 4:24 AM
Another real life demonstration of Ironies of Automation
Reposted by John Allspaw
Incidents happen because people do things that have always worked successfully, up until the incident. Doing something that always worked in the past is completely rational!
July 28, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Incidents happen because people do things that have always worked successfully, up until the incident. Doing something that always worked in the past is completely rational!
I'm now talking with Hamed Silatani, Alex Hibbitt, and Beth Adele Long about the various Catch-22 situations leaders find themselves in when responding to incidents!
www.linkedin.com/events/incid...
www.linkedin.com/events/incid...
[Incident Fest] - The Catch-22 of Executives in Incidents | LinkedIn
Join us for a short-but-sweet live session that focuses on the role of executives during incident management.
Although the session is prerecorded, our experts will participate in a Q&A in the comment...
www.linkedin.com
July 10, 2025 at 6:03 PM
I'm now talking with Hamed Silatani, Alex Hibbitt, and Beth Adele Long about the various Catch-22 situations leaders find themselves in when responding to incidents!
www.linkedin.com/events/incid...
www.linkedin.com/events/incid...
Reposted by John Allspaw
New blog post: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/05/15/l...
Labeling a root cause is predicting the future, poorly
Why do we retrospect on our incidents? Why spend the time doing those write-ups and holding review meetings? We don’t do this work as some sort of intellectual exercise for amusement. Rather,…
surfingcomplexity.blog
May 16, 2025 at 2:59 AM
New blog post: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/05/15/l...
Reposted by John Allspaw
New blog post: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/05/10/w...
When a bad analysis is worse than none at all
One of the most famous physics experiments in modern history is the double-split experiment, originally performed by the English physicist Thomas Young back in 1801. You probably learned about this…
surfingcomplexity.blog
May 10, 2025 at 8:06 PM
New blog post: surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/05/10/w...
1. PEOPLE keep things working.
2. When things break down, PEOPLE work to make the consequences much less than they might have been otherwise.
Both dynamics are, for the most part, invisible to management.
(via @lauramaguire.bsky.social's dissertation)
2. When things break down, PEOPLE work to make the consequences much less than they might have been otherwise.
Both dynamics are, for the most part, invisible to management.
(via @lauramaguire.bsky.social's dissertation)
March 18, 2025 at 12:49 PM
1. PEOPLE keep things working.
2. When things break down, PEOPLE work to make the consequences much less than they might have been otherwise.
Both dynamics are, for the most part, invisible to management.
(via @lauramaguire.bsky.social's dissertation)
2. When things break down, PEOPLE work to make the consequences much less than they might have been otherwise.
Both dynamics are, for the most part, invisible to management.
(via @lauramaguire.bsky.social's dissertation)
Reposted by John Allspaw
I recently read the paper "Towards Joint Activity Design Heuristics: Essentials for Human-Machine Teaming" which I loved so much I wanted to make it easier to share. To that end, I've excerpted the Ten Heuristics from the paper here: human-machine.team with anchors for each heuristic.
Ten Machine Requirements To Satisfy Essentials Of Joint Activity
human-machine.team
March 7, 2025 at 2:24 AM
I recently read the paper "Towards Joint Activity Design Heuristics: Essentials for Human-Machine Teaming" which I loved so much I wanted to make it easier to share. To that end, I've excerpted the Ten Heuristics from the paper here: human-machine.team with anchors for each heuristic.
Reposted by John Allspaw
What a great podcast! Honored to be talking about Resilience Engineering with @colettecello.bsky.social and @spamaps.org!
@allspaw.bsky.social joined us last week to help contrast ITIL's approach of "Counting and tabulating incidents" with the resilience engineering way of looking directly at the messy reality underneath them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
Episode 10 - When They go Full ITIL on You w/special guest John Allspaw
YouTube video by thisisfinepodcast
www.youtube.com
February 25, 2025 at 12:41 PM
What a great podcast! Honored to be talking about Resilience Engineering with @colettecello.bsky.social and @spamaps.org!
Reposted by John Allspaw
Two years ago, at the first LFI Conference, we spoke alongside a client of ours (Indeed) about the amazing progress they had made in learning effectively from incidents.
This is what "good" looks like with respect to learning effectively from incidents.
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/02/28/w...
This is what "good" looks like with respect to learning effectively from incidents.
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/02/28/w...
What Progress In Learning From Incidents Actually Looks Like
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com
March 2, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Two years ago, at the first LFI Conference, we spoke alongside a client of ours (Indeed) about the amazing progress they had made in learning effectively from incidents.
This is what "good" looks like with respect to learning effectively from incidents.
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/02/28/w...
This is what "good" looks like with respect to learning effectively from incidents.
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/02/28/w...
Reposted by John Allspaw
@allspaw.bsky.social joined us last week to help contrast ITIL's approach of "Counting and tabulating incidents" with the resilience engineering way of looking directly at the messy reality underneath them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
Episode 10 - When They go Full ITIL on You w/special guest John Allspaw
YouTube video by thisisfinepodcast
www.youtube.com
February 25, 2025 at 12:30 AM
@allspaw.bsky.social joined us last week to help contrast ITIL's approach of "Counting and tabulating incidents" with the resilience engineering way of looking directly at the messy reality underneath them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
Reposted by John Allspaw
Preach! youtu.be/cimcogNc02I?... 13:30-16:30
February 25, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Preach! youtu.be/cimcogNc02I?... 13:30-16:30
What a great podcast! Honored to be talking about Resilience Engineering with @colettecello.bsky.social and @spamaps.org!
@allspaw.bsky.social joined us last week to help contrast ITIL's approach of "Counting and tabulating incidents" with the resilience engineering way of looking directly at the messy reality underneath them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimc...
Episode 10 - When They go Full ITIL on You w/special guest John Allspaw
YouTube video by thisisfinepodcast
www.youtube.com
February 25, 2025 at 12:41 PM
What a great podcast! Honored to be talking about Resilience Engineering with @colettecello.bsky.social and @spamaps.org!
Reposted by John Allspaw
The Resilience in Software Foundation blog included notes I wrote for the paper "Four Concepts for Resilience Engineering" in their post today: resilienceinsoftware.org/news/1149720
Three Takes on Four Concepts for Resilience Engineering
Ed note: The first time I read Dr. David Woods' paper Four Concepts for Resilience Engineering, I felt so many things click in my brain. While the field of Resilience Engineering is not new, those of ...
resilienceinsoftware.org
February 21, 2025 at 4:05 AM
The Resilience in Software Foundation blog included notes I wrote for the paper "Four Concepts for Resilience Engineering" in their post today: resilienceinsoftware.org/news/1149720
Very few know we've (@adaptivecapacity.bsky.social) been developing tools to help support us. After 7 years & 6 patents (!) we realized others were interested in integrating/commercializing "Churchkey."
We’re looking for partners interested in licensing Churchkey's IP. churchkey.info
We’re looking for partners interested in licensing Churchkey's IP. churchkey.info
February 12, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Very few know we've (@adaptivecapacity.bsky.social) been developing tools to help support us. After 7 years & 6 patents (!) we realized others were interested in integrating/commercializing "Churchkey."
We’re looking for partners interested in licensing Churchkey's IP. churchkey.info
We’re looking for partners interested in licensing Churchkey's IP. churchkey.info
Reposted by John Allspaw
Beyond just the language setting ourselves up for failure, "root cause" have deeper issues. For me it triggers anxiety everytime i hear it. @allspaw.bsky.social has articulated it very well the issues here. Recommended material for SRE-201: github.com/readme/guide...
What we talk about when we talk about ‘root cause’
Instead of finding the ‘root cause’ to incidents and issues, @allspaw says it’s more accurate to try and break down what created the ‘perfect storm’:
github.com
February 2, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Beyond just the language setting ourselves up for failure, "root cause" have deeper issues. For me it triggers anxiety everytime i hear it. @allspaw.bsky.social has articulated it very well the issues here. Recommended material for SRE-201: github.com/readme/guide...
Reposted by John Allspaw
The beauty of your incident categorization scene is no match for the messiness of the real world.
January 29, 2025 at 5:40 PM
The beauty of your incident categorization scene is no match for the messiness of the real world.
Reposted by John Allspaw
I am so excited to announce the Resilience in Software Foundation - a project we've been working on for awhile now. 💜
Introducing the Resilience in Software Foundation: a multi-disciplinary group interested in networking with and learning from each other's unique experiences, and helping to disseminate their knowledge to the broader software industry as a whole. resilienceinsoftware.org/news/1092580
Introducing the Resilience in Software Foundation
Software failures are inevitable. No matter how hard we try, we can’t make our systems flawless, nor can we predict every possible problem. The systems we’re building today are beyond the mental model...
resilienceinsoftware.org
December 20, 2024 at 8:16 PM
I am so excited to announce the Resilience in Software Foundation - a project we've been working on for awhile now. 💜
Reposted by John Allspaw
Hey folks, new episode up today! Come listen to us chat with @courtneynash.bsky.social about the ironies of automation, AI, HABA-MABA, and the impending job shortage of people who can grok how AI broke it...
youtu.be/i4qMmp6-hXg
youtu.be/i4qMmp6-hXg
Episode 7 - AI and Resilience with special guest Courtney Nash
YouTube video by thisisfinepodcast
youtu.be
January 22, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Hey folks, new episode up today! Come listen to us chat with @courtneynash.bsky.social about the ironies of automation, AI, HABA-MABA, and the impending job shortage of people who can grok how AI broke it...
youtu.be/i4qMmp6-hXg
youtu.be/i4qMmp6-hXg
A talk I gave last year at SRECon Americas, "Real Talk: What We Think We Know — That Just Ain’t So" about the importance of thinking deliberately and critically about our assumptions, and admitting when we get things wrong...
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/01/07/r...
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/01/07/r...
Revisiting What We Think We Already Know
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com
January 17, 2025 at 12:45 PM
A talk I gave last year at SRECon Americas, "Real Talk: What We Think We Know — That Just Ain’t So" about the importance of thinking deliberately and critically about our assumptions, and admitting when we get things wrong...
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/01/07/r...
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/2025/01/07/r...