Introducing 100 Things to know about Resilience Engineering

The Resilience in Software Foundation began with the aspiration that we as software engineers can continue to mature our practice of understanding our complex socio-technical systems. Having seen some of the ways colleagues in other fields (such as nuclear power safety, aviation and travel, the medical industry, along with several others) approach their work, we look to contribute to this practice through our own daily work. Individually and collectively, we've explored in our organizations what it means to be resilient, a continuous and neverending study of how teams find novel ways to navigate surprises and uncertainty.

Where do you start with a subject that is both everpresent and so deep? Ask anyone who has dipped their toe in and you'll quickly receive a deluge of papers, blog posts, books, and conference talks to last quite a while. It can be overwhelming!

We're excited to provide a new, more easily digestible way to share these deep wells of knowledge through a new blog series: 100 Things to Know about Resilience Engineering. With so many concepts to choose from, it can be daunting to know where to start. We intend this series as a way to help people slowly on-ramp to these topics. Sometimes you may simply need a refresher to a concept, or there's a team member who you want to share a particular idea with but need an easily distributable resource, distilled to its essence with bread crumbs to additional content that piques interest.

In this series, we'll share short posts on topics at the heart of Resilience Engineering (and related, adjacent fields of study) from researchers who have been trailblazers in this field for decades, bringing these nuggets of wisdom to the software field. Each week, expect a post from a member of our community to help inspire conversations and uncover intriguing ways to explore our systems. Included in each will be further reading for those looking to continue their studies.

We're excited to share these concepts, in a format that will ideally help understand and disseminate the foundational aspects of our work. With these seminal topics, we're eager to encourage others to stoke the fires of learning stemming from our disasters and near-misses alike. Conversations delving into these topics, applied to real world cases, are part of our growing community in the Resilience in Software Foundation. We encourage folks eager to discuss further to join us and share their own experiences.

Without further ado, here is Post #1 in the series: Four Concepts for Resilience