Bulldozer00's Blog

One definition of a system is “a collection of interacting elements designed to fulfill a purpose“. A well known rule of thumb for designing robust and efficient social, technical, and socio-technical systems is:

Keep your system elements Loosely Coupled and Internally Cohesive (LCIC)

The opposite of this golden rule is to design a system that has Tightly Coupled and Internally Fragmented (TCIF) elements. TCIF systems are rigid, inflexible, and tough to troubleshoot when the system malfunctions.

Designing, building, testing, and deploying LCIC systems is not enough to ensure that the system’s purpose will be fulfilled over long periods of time. Because of the relentless increase in entropy dictated by the second law of thermodynamics, continuous husbandry (as my friend W. L. Livingston often says) is required to arrest the growth in entropy. Without husbandry, LCIC systems (like startup companies) morph into TCIF systems (like corpocracies). The transformation can be so slooow that it is undetectable – until it’s too late. In subtle LCIC-to-TCIF transformations, it takes a crisis to shake the system architect(s) into reality. In a sudden jolt of awareness, they realize that their cute and lovable baby has turned into an uncontrollable ogre capable of massive stakeholder destruction. Bummer.