How Complex Systems Fail (1998)
&gt; The evaluations based on such reasoning as ‘root cause’ do not reflect a technical understanding of the nature of failure but rather the social, cultural need to blame specific, localized forces or events for outcomes.<p>I&#x27;ve heard this line before and I don&#x27;t buy it. Methods exist that have been proven to identify root causes and those have led to significant reductions in failures. Half this page talks about how systems are made resilient to failures over time. But to do that you need to identify the failures&#x27; root causes!<p>The Five Whys is one example of an effective method to find root causes. The solution may not be simple, but it does lead to more robust systems.