Rest Well, My Friend

Last month, there was a loss in the DevOps community. The late Richard Cook, MD, greatly impacted many of us. He was famous for his work on complex systems related to patient care and IT systems. John Allspaw wrote a blog post in 2009 about how Richard's work related to web operations. Richard's original paper was called "Why Complex Systems Failed." It was similar to reading about Dr. Deming's 14 points for the first time. There was a close alignment between all the points and the principles of DevOps.

Although I was already a fan, I met Richard a few years later, and I'm particularly proud to call him my friend. A conversation with Richard was always fascinating. He wasn't just brilliant; he had a demeanor and calm voice that made you feel comfortable, no matter how complex the discussion was. Even though he was an accomplished medical and safety professional, you never felt out of place when you debated with him. After tweeting about Knight Capital once, we got on the phone and discussed it for 2.5 hours. Another time, after a conversation, I wrote a blog post based on what we discussed, and he politely asked if he could edit it (in his words, he couldn't help himself being a professor.) He would probably ask to edit this post if he were here.

Richard was just a very cool guy with his often-suited bow tie. Sometimes in the same week, he would be in an operating room as an anesthesiologist, and later that week, he would be doing a DevOps retrospective at a bank. Whether you met him once or a thousand times, you felt like he was your friend. A friend of mine had a stroke a few years ago, and Richard sent me messages all evening, relaying messages to my friend's wife, offering advice. It's just the way he was. At the DevOps Enterprise Summit, I had some of my best conversations with him. MTTR was once the subject of a colorful discussion. Richard had a great way of helping you look at your beliefs in a completely different way.

Only once in a dozen debates I had with him was a draw; most of the time, my worldview changed. Every once and a while, my imposter syndrome would kick in, and I would ask myself, why does this guy think I'm smart? Richard didn't think that way; in his eyes, we all contributed equally to the greater conversation. One of my fondest memories was when Gene Kim and I created a 2.5 Hour Symposium with Richard, Sidney Dekker, and Steven Spear in 2017: Safety Culture, Lean, and DevOps. The symposium led to a discussion about bridging Lean and Safety. After the first couple hours of an intense debate between Spear (Lean) and Dekker and Richard (Saftey) at lunch, Richard asked Dr. Spear what we had missed about Lean. After lunch, I convinced them to record that conversation. That symposium is incredible. Richard and I last corresponded in May this year, after I sent him the first draft of my book about Dr. Deming. I didn't know about his health problems, so he said he wouldn't be able to read it until the summer. I would have loved to have had that debate.

I contacted John Allspaw as soon as I learned of his death and asked if there was anything I could do. As John told me, you should keep doing what you do, and Richard was a fan of mine. It's good advice for all of us; we should keep doing our best to make Richard and all of our friends proud of us.?

Links:

https://www.kitchensoap.com/2009/11/12/how-complex-systems-fail-a-webops-perspective/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228797158_How_complex_systems_fail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZP98stDUf0