Netflix has a new documentary on Boeing called Downfall, centered around the two crashes of the Boeing 737 Max planes. It is worth your time. But I wanted to talk about a lesson from the debacle: the importance of Goodhart’s law. So why did the two Boeing 737 Max planes drop out of mid-air and kill several hundred people? A reasonable answer is that the angle of attack sensor failed, which caused the plane to misbehave. But sensors fail all the time; why did that prove fatal? We can use Systems thinking and apply Iceberg analysis to get to the root cause.
On Goodhart's law and Boeing
On Goodhart's law and Boeing
On Goodhart's law and Boeing
Netflix has a new documentary on Boeing called Downfall, centered around the two crashes of the Boeing 737 Max planes. It is worth your time. But I wanted to talk about a lesson from the debacle: the importance of Goodhart’s law. So why did the two Boeing 737 Max planes drop out of mid-air and kill several hundred people? A reasonable answer is that the angle of attack sensor failed, which caused the plane to misbehave. But sensors fail all the time; why did that prove fatal? We can use Systems thinking and apply Iceberg analysis to get to the root cause.