Interviewing application owners without turning the room defensive
Application owners in Korean enterprises often carry years of incident history. Opening with “what is broken?” invites polished answers. Opening with “walk me through a normal Monday for this system” usually yields richer detail.
Ask where they wait on other teams. Ask which shared component they would least like to see restarted without notice. Ask what they check first when users complain. Those three questions surface dependency risk faster than a formal architecture quiz.
Record constraints honestly: freeze periods, vendor-managed pieces, staff who leave next quarter. Health analytics that ignore constraints produce remediation lists nobody can schedule.
When findings later mention a weak area, quote the constraint alongside the risk. People accept hard news when the report shows you heard why the weak area persisted.