High Reliability Management

"Schulman and Roe understand how large-scale organizations successfully deal with modern threats. In High Reliability Management, these recognized experts and creative thinkers dissect the strategies and practices of CAISO—an organization operating in one of the most complex and quickly evolving environments imaginable. Their accessible writing brings the reader into the control rooms and explains how operators perform reliably under immense pressure. This book pushes the boundaries of High Reliability Theory and takes its position as an instant classic in the field." —Arjen Boin, Leiden University
"Paul Schulman and Emery Roe take us behind the scenes of high reliability managing in a complex network and find that the previously unarticulated role of 'reliability professionals' can make or break high reliability organizations. This well-grounded discovery is of utmost importance since it increases the paths by which higher reliability can be produced. Every manager who tries valiantly to 'keep up' with dynamic input, and every academic who puzzles over the mystery of how 'keeping up' is accomplished, will love this book! This is a story of volatility and options to handle it, a story that could not be more timely." —Karl E. Weick, Co-author of Managing the Unexpected, Second Edition
"Based on remarkable, sustained access to the institution that manages one of the county's most significant operating networks and critical infrastructures, Roe and Schulman contribute important, new insights into the dynamics and dilemmas of reliable organizational performance. The study calls out the crucial nature of reliability professionals in assuring steady performance under widely varying and often surprising conditions. It is an alert to decision makers and a cautionary tale for planners and regulators, as the US continues to struggle with the challenges of infrastructures at risk. One of a kind, this book is a must read for those who seek to design, manage, and understand large technical systems that confront markets everywhere."—Todd R. La Porte, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
"The book is a valuable case study, the most intensive to date, of a large electricity grid and has a conceptualization of operational phrases that can be used on other systems."—Charles Perrow, Yale University