"Complex systems amplify small errors through normal operation.
Most disasters begin as a reasonable exception. In a reliability improvement that shifts risk elsewhere, the system learns the exception faster than it learns the risk.
In a reliability improvement that shifts risk elsewhere, you will feel pressure to keep the conversation optimistic. Optimism is expensive when it prevents guardrails. You see it in a retry policy change that turns one failure into a storm. Write it for the person who inherits it later, because they will not have today’s context or today’s goodwill. Make the signal observable, not philosophical, so you can act without debating intentions.
Charles Perrow is a reminder to audit the argument, not the intention. From six months ahead, name the failure and the excuse, then insist on one backstop. Clarity reduces noise more than another meeting does.