There are a couple of universal patterns that show up across fields that you should apply to pretty much anything:
- Use a written process because memory isn't reliable (see aviation checklists, surgery, mise en place, SOPs...)
- Stop early when something is wrong (Andon cord, feature flags, turnaround time, error budgets...)
- Leave a buffer (Margin of safety, safety stock, taper, defense in depth...)
- Fix the system rather than blame people (Blameless post-mortems, poka-yoke, Swiss cheese model...)
- Get feedback fast (OODA, kaizen, canary releases, after-action reviews...)
- Hand over with a fixed format (SBAR, BLUF, commander's intent...)
- Ramp up gradually (10% rule, canary releases, position sizing....)