In order to see a problem for what it is, we must first break it down into its substantive parts so the interconnections can reveal themselves.

But there’s a problem with this metaphor. A postmortem implies that there must be a dead project, a dead business, or a dead career before we’re moved to action. The idea of death suggests that only catastrophic failures deserve a thorough investigation. But if we wait until disaster strikes to conduct a postmortem, the string of small failures and