14 posts on the operating stage of the lifecycle.
The bug your angriest customer is emailing about and the bug wrecking the most lives are almost never the same bug.
triage operating
You can build every house on the street to code and still hand someone a neighbourhood that seizes the first time everyone leaves at once.
operating planning
One lock is not security. It is a single point of failure you have not yet watched fail.
operating reviewing retrospective
You do not have a failover. You have a failover you have never triggered, which is a different thing with the same name.
verify operating
Every shiny new database is a promise to learn, at three in the morning, exactly how it breaks.
planning operating
The most reliable systems in the world stopped trying not to fall over, and got very good at standing back up.
operating implementing
Past a certain point a system does not slow down, it falls off a cliff, and the only kindness left is to refuse work you cannot finish.
implementing operating
Your most dangerous attacker never gets a key. They find someone who already has one and ask nicely.
implementing reviewing operating
Everybody has a backup. Almost nobody has a restore. The difference is the whole story.
verify operating
The ugly working system you want to delete is a scar map of every wound it has survived, and you are about to throw the map away.
planning operating retiring
Types and tests guard the ground inside the compiler; past its edge, the only thing between you and disaster is a process someone bothered to build.
operating planning
Every resource you open is a promise to close it, and the bill for a broken promise always arrives at the worst possible hour.
implementing reviewing operating
Every dashboard is green. Every alert is quiet. And something has been rotting underneath for six weeks.
implementing operating retrospective
Everything you build will fail one day. The only thing you get to decide in advance is how far the wreckage spreads.
operating reviewing triage