A lens, not a verdict. Models make a complex system easier to question. Use several, compare their blind spots, and return to the evidence.
Controls Swiss Cheese Model Harm can pass through gaps in multiple defenses: organizational influences, supervision, preconditions, and active failures.
James Reason Controls FMEA Identify failure modes, their effects, and controls before or during system development.
Reliability engineering; aerospace and military practice Incident Fault Tree Analysis Work backward from a defined loss using logical combinations of conditions.
Bell Laboratories; safety engineering System Systems thinking Examine relationships, boundaries, feedback, and incentives across a whole system.
Multiple traditions in systems science Incident Five Whys Ask successive why questions to uncover conditions behind a visible problem.
Toyota production practice Incident Fishbone/Ishikawa diagram Group possible contributing factors to structure a team investigation.
Kaoru Ishikawa Incident Event Tree Analysis Follow possible outcomes after an initiating event and responses.
Reliability and safety engineering Controls Bow-Tie Analysis Connect threats to a central event, then to consequences, with preventive and mitigating barriers.
Process safety practice System Normal Accident Theory Explore how tight coupling and complex interactions can make unexpected accidents possible.
Charles Perrow Controls High Reliability Organizations Study practices that support attentive, resilient operation in hazardous settings.
Organizational research tradition System Safety-II Investigate how everyday work succeeds through adaptation and variability.
Erik Hollnagel and resilience engineering Controls STAMP Analyze safety as a problem of inadequate control in a sociotechnical system.
Nancy Leveson System FRAM Map how variability in everyday functions can combine across a system.
Erik Hollnagel Incident Root Cause Analysis Use structured evidence to identify contributory conditions and corrective actions.
Multiple investigation traditions Controls HAZOP Use guide words to examine deviations from intended operation.
Chemical process engineering Recovery OODA loop Cycle through observing, orienting, deciding, and acting as conditions change.
John Boyd Decisions Premortem Imagine a project has failed and identify plausible reasons before committing.
Gary Klein Recovery After-action review Compare intent, actual events, and lessons after an activity.
Military learning practice Recovery Theory of Constraints Identify and manage the constraint limiting a system’s performance.
Eliyahu Goldratt System Causal loop diagrams Make reinforcing and balancing relationships explicit in a qualitative map.
System dynamics tradition System Feedback-loop analysis Examine delays, feedback, and adaptation in a changing system.
Control and systems traditions Product Jobs to Be Done Study the progress people seek in a particular situation.
Multiple innovation research traditions Product Diffusion of Innovations Examine how an innovation spreads through a social system.
Everett Rogers Product Technology adoption lifecycle Consider differences in adoption behavior across market segments.
Technology marketing practice Growth Business Model Canvas Map the activities, resources, customers, and economics of a business.
Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur Product Value proposition analysis Compare a proposed offer with customer needs and alternatives.
Strategy and design practice Growth Unit economics Evaluate revenue and costs at a meaningful customer or transaction level.
Business and financial analysis Decisions Real options thinking Treat staged commitments as ways to preserve choices under uncertainty.
Financial economics and strategy Warnings Escalation of commitment Study continued investment in a course of action despite unfavorable evidence.
Barry Staw and behavioral research Decisions Sunk-cost fallacy Recognize when irrecoverable past costs distort a forward-looking choice.
Behavioral economics Governance Goodhart’s Law Examine how targeting a measure can weaken its relationship to the intended outcome.
Charles Goodhart Decisions Survivorship bias Examine the evidence missing when only surviving examples are observed.
Statistical reasoning Warnings Normalization of deviance Explore how repeated departures can become accepted when immediate harm does not occur.
Diane Vaughan Governance Principal-agent problem Study conflicts between delegated decision-makers and those affected by their choices.
Economics and organizational theory Governance Moral hazard Examine incentives when actors do not bear all the costs of a risk.
Insurance and economic theory Decisions Black Swan theory Question the limits of prediction and exposure to consequential surprises.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb System Robust decision-making Choose strategies that perform acceptably across many plausible futures.
Decision analysis and RAND research Decisions Scenario planning Explore multiple plausible futures to test assumptions and responses.
Strategy and futures practice Introductory editorial guides. Framework applications are interpretations; no model proves a unique cause. Original literature and case-specific evidence should guide formal investigations.