A near miss contains evidence that disappears if relief becomes the whole story.

A near miss carries real information, and relief has a way of consuming it. The moment passes, everyone is grateful, and the fact that the system came within inches of failing gets filed as a good outcome. The most useful data available arrives disguised as a story with a happy ending.

So when something nearly goes wrong, take ten minutes before the relief settles. Write down what happened and what stopped it, which is often luck rather than design. Doing this after minor incidents, in a car, a kitchen, a project, is the cheapest available way to learn something that usually costs a great deal more.