Gall’s Law on Complex Systems

Gall’s Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.

Systems in general work poorly or not at all.

Two representative corollaries of this theory are:

1. Large systems usually operate in failure mode.
   
2. The system tends to oppose its own proper function.
   

Human failure while a part of many systems is not claimed as the underlying cause and instead it is suggested that the observed difficulties are intrinsic to the system’s operation.

Gall’s book - Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail