“Once you get fancy, fancy gets broken.”
— Morgan Spurlock
We enjoy stories of the lone genius, the maverick operator, the individual who solves the problem no one else could and saves the day.
But If there is a single point of failure because the solution was so complex that only the original problem solver can make sense of it, we have another kind of problem.
Who watches the watchmen?
It matters less if the consequences of failure are low. But if it’s mission critical for your organisation…
Checks and balances, good governance, a second opinion. Periodically and over time these are useful, perhaps essential, mechanisms in any system.
The more complex something is, the greater the potential for errors, and the greater the need for governance.