Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems van Sidney Dekker is an English-language textbook on complex systems. It focuses on understanding how complex systems drift into failure and is suitable for higher education.
This book examines the mechanisms behind the emergence of major failures in complex systems. It compares examples such as the subprime lending crisis, the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and the crashed Space Shuttle Columbia to show how small, everyday decisions lead to large-scale catastrophes. Dekker addresses concepts such as complexity theory, systems thinking, tipping points, and sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The analysis shifts from searching for individual errors to understanding the interconnections within systems.
This title is aimed at disciplines such as management, corporate governance, and industrial safety. It offers a subject-focused approach to gain insight into the drift into failure of technical and organizational systems and develops a vocabulary to deal with it.