Skip to main content

Chapter 2 of The Operating Manual

The lenses I use to understand complex systems.

They are the patterns my brain naturally reaches for when I am trying to understand something complicated.

01

Follow the first divergence.

Do not begin where someone noticed the problem.

Begin where reality first stopped matching expectations.

02

Business logic vs. dependency.

If a workflow only works because one specific person remembers how it works, that is not process.

That is dependency.

03

Friction is information.

When people repeatedly struggle in the same place, I do not assume the people are the problem.

I assume the design is trying to tell me something.