The Challenge of the Unstable

Systems are ever-changing.  No system, human or machine, can avoid changes.  Look at the highway on the way home from work one night - - the incompleteness of a system is partly attributable to this ever changing nature.  Changes take place because of external drivers (e.g., economic pressures).  But changes also takes place because of internal drivers (e.g., different leadership with a different management philosophy).

Adaptability is typically used in the context of change.  A more important word for the era of instability is resilience.  From climate change, to natural disasters, to acts of terrorism, to economic disruptions - - what people care about is the resilience of a system and organization.  How fast can you spring back when faced with a set back?  Can you recover?  Resilience is measured by the ability to absorb or adapt to disturbances, disruption, and change.  When you are rocked by rolling blackouts during heavy snow storms, how resilient are the systems at the local hospital?  What about the transportation systems - - when are you back to a normal schedule?

North Texas recently had a rough week with our Super Bowl.  System instability was the theme for last week.  When looking at resilience, consider the following attributes of any given system:

1. Buffering Capacity - - The size or kinds of disruptions the system can absorb or adapt to without a fundamental breakdown in performance or in the system's structure.  Our ability to move snow plows in from West Texas during two ice and snowstorms greatly increased the buffering capacity of the snow removal system.
2. Flexibility Versus Stiffness - - The system's ability to restructure itself in response to external changes or pressures.  Some 400 fans who purchased tickets were denied seating due to code violations - - in this case the system was extremely stiff with limited flexibility for the unlucky 400.
3. Margin - - How closely or how precarious the system is currently operating relative to one or another kind of performance boundary.  Rolling blackouts in the electrical system caused by disruptions in the water system demonstrated the relative low margin the combined system has during periods of high demand and utilization.
4. Tolerance - - How a system behaves near a boundary - - whether the system gracefully degrades as stress/pressure increase or collapses quickly when pressure exceeds adaptive capacity.  Public transportation across the performance boundary collapsed as weather related pressures consumed the adaptive capacity of the system.