I was reading an article about the state of SaaS recently, and came across this line:

The data moat surrounding incumbent SaaS / systems of record is likely overstated. I would argue that the most important context doesn’t reside in systems of records, regardless of their size, but in the minds and multimodal work of millions of users over time.

What struck me is how obvious this is to anyone (with a systems thinking, complexity-aware brain) in product development, and how counterintuitive it is to anyone outside of product development. I have long argued that tools barely scratch the surface when it comes to capturing real-world sensemaking, meaning-making, and decision-making. The same goes for the “official” frameworks used to manage companies. They do something , but it isn’t everything.

The tension is perfectly captured in James C. Scott’s distinction between legibility and mētis:

Legibility: the simplification of reality into standardized, abstract, and comparable representations so that institutions can see, measure, administer, and control it at scale.

Mētis: the locally grounded, experience-based, tacit knowledge that people use to navigate real situations, adapt to context, and make good decisions when the map no longer matches the terrain.

“System of record” or “source of truth” are squarely in the legibility domain. Whole segments of SaaS, especially in the operations management domain, are basically legibility systems. Either through integrations or data entry, they collect information, remove any real local context, and produce simple, manageable reports.

There’s a lot of record, and only a little bit of truth, but that truth is very seductive.

This might be fine if the promise of your product is an accounting system. Accounting systems are meant to be transactional and to ensure everything adds up. Or an asset tracking and mapping system, where you can’t lose anything. Or a support ticket intake system. Or a construction project management system.

But if the promise is actual outcomes in the complex world of product development, things get shaky.

TBM 405: Hope, Context, and Control