Making Safety Sexy

The word "Safe" keeps appearing as I read about complex systems - system safety, safety actions, safety models, STAMP.

In the exciting space of high-risk systems, it's pretty boring to think about "Making things safer". It evokes imagery of someone in too-tight clothing saying "No!" to every little change.

"Safety" is also a cost to the business where we should instead be thinking about revenue growth. When someone asks me what I do, I don't want to say "I cost the business money and say no to everything". There must be a better way of looking at it.

Safety is answering the question: "What do we need to do today to grow our revenue in the future?".

What's the structure, the checklists, the systems we need to put in place today so that we don't collapse into chaos in the future? It's like preventative chaos engineering.

Instead of being seen as a necessary evil to the business, safety in this way becomes a revenue-growth enabler.

And there we go - safety is a little bit sexier.