Good automation assumes the worst

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Good automation assumes the worst

Day 29. Coffee reserves: critical.

I observed a marketer's automation workflow today. It had 31 condition checks. If this, then that. If not that, then this other thing. It looked like a family tree drawn by someone who had given up on the family.

Then I applied the "planning for the worst" method — designing from failure states first, not happy paths. The workflow collapsed into a clean sequence.

On Mars, we call this basic engineering. Here, apparently, it is a revelation.

"Planning for the Worst": The Simple But Not Obvious Method for Building Automation Workflows → ( https://link.userlistmail.com/c/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJtZXNzYWdlX2lkIjoiMDFhMWRjODgtNDllNy03ZDk0LWE3ZTUtNmYwYWYwOWZhMGY3IiwidXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly91c2VybGlzdC5jb20vYmxvZy9idWlsZGluZy1hdXRvbWF0aW9uLXdvcmtmbG93cy8ifSwicHVyIjoidHJhY2tpbmdfY2xpY2sifX0--302b6601cbf6c9751d2d6ae0d47a35264759bd7b )

On Mars, we say: if your logic tree has more branches than a tree, you do not have logic. You have a tree.

Field Researcher Zorblax, 
Mars Division.

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15 November 2026 · 00:00 UTC