This standard ensures teams proactively test failure modes to build resilience and uncover weaknesses before they impact users. It drives a culture of engineering excellence where systems are designed to handle the unexpected gracefully.
Aligned to our "Engineering Excellence First" policy, this standard reduces downtime, improves confidence in releases, and strengthens operational readiness. Without it, failures are harder to diagnose, more costly to fix, and more likely to erode trust.
Clearly defined impacts of meeting this standard include improved delivery flow, reduced risk, higher system resilience, and better alignment to business needs. Over time, teams will see reduced rework, faster time to value, and stronger system integrity.
Level 1 – Initial: Failures are only addressed reactively.
Level 2 – Managed: Some testing of failure scenarios occurs during development.
Level 3 – Defined: Failure scenarios are documented and tested systematically.
Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed: Coverage and frequency of failure testing are tracked.
Level 5 – Optimising: Failure testing is continuous and adaptive, based on live risk and system complexity.