Three Questions Before You Touch Anything

A list tells you what's wrong. A plan tells you what to do Monday.

The first look at a signal network usually turns up a long list. Default logins. Old firmware. A contractor account nobody remembers. A camera that can reach the internet. A radio link with no encryption.

The list feels urgent. It's also useless until you decide what comes first. Severity scores help, but they don't know your streets. A critical flaw on a controller at a quiet rural crossing can wait a week. A medium flaw on the controller outside the hospital can't.

Three questions sort the list.

1. What can it reach?

Can this device reach the traffic center? Other intersections? A vendor's network? The internet? A device that can reach the whole corridor moves to the top. A device boxed into its own corner moves down.

2. What breaks if it fails?

Would a busy corridor drop into flash at rush hour? Would fire trucks lose their green light? Would a school crossing stop working? Would the traffic center go blind on a dozen intersections? The bigger the answer, the more care the fix needs.

3. Can we change it safely today?

Is the fix one Findavi supports for this device? Has the traffic engineer said yes? Is there a quiet window, say two in the morning, to make the change? Is there a way back if it goes wrong? Do we know exactly how we'll check that the unsafe path is closed and the intersection still works?

If any answer is no, the fix waits. The device can still be watched and walled off in the meantime.

Core idea: Severity tells you something is wrong. What breaks if it fails tells you what comes first.

Ask your team: Which five intersections would cause the most trouble if their controllers went dark today?