Taleb argues that we want to create systems that are antifragile – that are designed to take advantage of volatility. I think this concept is incredibly powerful when applied to systems and organizational architecture.

Why Continuous Delivery Works

Taleb shows why the traditional approach of operations – making change hard, since change is risky – is flawed: “the problem with artificially suppressed volatility is not just that the system tends to become extremely fragile; it is that, at the same time, it exhibits no visible risks… These artificially constrained systems become prone to Black Swans. Such environments eventually experience massive blowups… catching everyone off guard and undoing years of stability or, in almost all cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state” (p105).

This a great explanation of how many attempts to manage risk actually result in risk management theatre – giving the appearance of effective risk management while actually making the system and the organization extremely fragile to unexpected events. It also explains why continuous delivery works. The most important heuristic we describe in the book is “if it hurts, do it more often, and bring the pain forward.” The effect of following this principle is to exert a constant stress on your delivery and deployment process to reduce its fragility so that releasing becomes a boring, low-risk activity.

via On Antifragility in Systems and Organizational Architecture | Continuous Delivery.