The One With Carla Geisser and Crisis Engineering

The podcast explores the concept of "crisis engineering," distinguishing it from standard incident response with its focus on novel, high-stakes situations lacking established playbooks. Carla Geisser from LayerEleph, a crisis engineering firm, defines a crisis by five elements: fundamental surprise, broken critical functions, high visibility, rigid deadlines, and perception breakdown. The discussion highlights how organizations, particularly in government, often misdiagnose problems by blaming outdated systems instead of addressing the complexity of layered technologies. Geisser advises SREs to recognize when a true crisis exists, as this is when leadership becomes willing to break rules and enact significant changes. The conversation uses the example of healthcare.gov's initial rollout and a startup acquisition to illustrate planned versus unplanned crises and the importance of end-to-end system visibility.