How to make sense of any mess
Information architecture and simple modeling tools like flow or dependency diagrams can dramatically clarify complex organizational processes, yet many teams underuse them and operate amid undocumented, conflicting understandings of “how things work.” Commenters connect Abby Covert’s “How to Make Sense of Any Mess” to real-world experiences in finance and tech, noting how structured approaches from fields like aviation and the military (OODA loops, checklists, decision frameworks) improve planning, risk management, and stakeholder alignment. While some criticize the book’s web presentation as hard to read, many still see the underlying concepts as broadly applicable beyond UX to any organization struggling with messy systems and decision-making.
Information architecture and what “messes” look like in practice
- Several commenters say the book’s framing matches their real-world experience, especially in large orgs (e.g., banks, hedge funds, legacy enterprises).
- A recurring theme: the “mess” is less about technology and more about misaligned definitions (e.g., many competing definitions of “user” or “retention”) and undocumented processes.
- People often disagree not on “what should we do?” but on “when do we want it?” — time, scope, and expectations are the real battleground.
Diagrams, dependency graphs, and underused tools
- Critical path / flow diagrams, swimlane diagrams, and dependency graphs are called “criminally underused” despite their huge value in clarifying serial vs parallel work and uncovering loops/dependencies.
- Simple live tools (Mermaid, yUML, Draw.io, yEd) are praised for making dependencies visible and revealing when systems are “spaghetti.”
- One story: just switching planning sessions from data-structure diagrams to data-dependency diagrams eliminated API loops and missed deadlines almost overnight.
Decision-making, data, and leadership behavior
- Some report leaders deciding first and then seeking data to justify it; others push back, saying they more often see hypothesis → data request → adjust (or not) based on results.
- On data: good leaders instrument early to enable before/after comparison; others “yolo” changes and only later ask for impossible metrics.
- Comments connect cognitive biases and “press secretary” self-justification with how orgs rationalize choices; references made to dual-process thinking and hidden motives.
- Military and aviation planning are cited as positive models: formal planning, risk management, and decision frameworks (OODA loop, pilot decision-making, checklists) are seen as transferable to product and org design.
Complex, interconnected messes and “garbage can” thinking
- The hardest problems are chained dependencies: fixing system A breaks B and C, and so on.
- One commenter links this to the “Garbage can model,” where organizations accumulate dumped projects and failures, sometimes as intentional scapegoats.
Website / hypertext design reactions
- Many find the site hard to read: narrow columns, excessive pagination, many links, and highlighted lexicon terms that disrupt flow. A few see it as almost “TimeCube-like.”
- Others appreciate the hypertext/lexicon concept and decomposition of the book into small web “articles,” though they agree the visual hierarchy and typography could be better.
- There’s meta-discussion about not letting complaints about formatting drown out discussion of the ideas.