ABSTRACT

'Resilience' involves many different matters covered by the same word. Resilience often seems to mean the ability to put things back together once they have fallen apart. The ability to rebound after receiving a surprise attack in war is a good measure of such resilience. The chapter provides different implications for developing resilient systems. This ability, often important for the designer of technology, is also important for the operating organization. But often organizations are resilient because they can respond quickly or even redesign themselves in the midst of trouble. Coping with ongoing trouble immediately raises the questions of defences and capabilities. The Report on 9/11 showed that coping with the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center was often defective because of poor organizational discipline, previous unresolved police/fire department conflicts. A football team is resilient because its players are tough and its moves are well coordinated.