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Systems

Clive Griffiths
Clive Griffiths
1 min read

A working system delivers consistent outcomes.

Which means there are never bad results.

Now, there may be undesirable results, because the system was designed to deliver one thing, and it's not what you want now.

Maybe it was never what you wanted.

So, stop blaming the system.

The system isn't faulty.
The system is doing its thing.

From oligarchs avoiding tax... to potholes wrecking tires.
The system was built in a way that supports these.

Yes, you might not like it.
But that's exactly how someone designed it.

You don't "fix" systems.
You redesign them, or replace them,
so they produce a different result.

And where it's complicated - and it usually is - especially where humans are concerned, it's hard to get right.

I remember once being told that the system needed to be fixed:

Children playing truant from school?
Fine the parents.
If they don't pay?
Imprison them.

This was considered a serious proposition by the speaker!

When I challenged the statement—asking if parents in jail would encourage attendance, and if there was sufficient space at HM pleasure... I was told not to be ridiculous.

Would it be better to let these Muppets design our systems, without input from a systems engineer, just to see how well they screw it up?

LinkedIn PostsLI-2026

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