How to Learn from Your Mistakes and Improve Your Systems

Every piece of software contains defects. These defects can be small or large, and they can range from harmless to critical. In some cases, defects can lead to partial or complete system inoperability.

When a defect causes a system to fail, it is important to conduct a detailed analysis of the case. This analysis, known as a post-mortem report, should include the following:

• A description of the problem
• An analysis of the root cause of the problem
• Lessons learned from the incident

It is of course important to fix the problem before turning to the post-mortem report. Once the problem is fixed, the post-mortem report can help to identify and fix the root cause of the problem. This can prevent the same problem from happening again in the future.

There is a very good example of a very high quality post-mortem report that was recently published by the Rust community.

This report describes the failures of the crates.io package repository, which is used to store and distribute Rust language packages. It provides a detailed incident description, timeline, and analysis of the root cause of the failures, as well as lessons learned from the incident.

If you are a software systems engineer, I encourage you to create post-mortem reports for any defects that cause your system to fail. These reports can help you to improve the quality of your software, build trust with your customers, and prevent future problems.

At SUPREMATIC, we do this kind of analysis and provide reports for our customers. If you are experiencing problems with your software, we can help you to troubleshoot the issue and create a post-mortem report. This will help you to understand what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening again.