What Connections Can Teach Us about Postmortems
summary
Argues that using James Burke’s Connections techniques turns dense postmortems into usable lessons by highlighting surprising connections (e.g., how unrelated services or the 1965 Northeast blackout cascade interact), using concrete tools like timelines-first, primary-source links, and system/person zoom-ins, and by writing in plain language; cites Connections as a ten‑part 1978 series that spent two years visiting 150 locations in 22 countries to trace eight technologies. Shows these techniques improve recall and diagnosis but warns they can introduce bias if narratives are forced.
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chapters (23)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:14What is Connections
- 0:36James Burke
- 2:42The First Episode
- 3:59The Last Episode
- 6:00How I Learned History
- 7:05History vs Historiography
- 7:46Storytelling
- 8:31Postmortem is a story
- 9:21Logical rational brain
- 9:50Postmortems
- 10:04Oversimplification
- 10:49Metrics Logs
- 12:19Central Question
- 12:35Burkes Technique
- 17:11The Future Knowing What Happens
- 19:05Illustrating Complexity
- 21:49Writing Well
- 25:19Avoid telling a story
- 26:05Avoid hindsight bias
- 27:17Avoid threeact narratives
- 28:17Summary
- 29:38Questions
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