[mbrutsch]

I disagree. A different approach would be to say "Don't know what happened before, but moving forward Ted is accountable for A, Alice is accountable for B, etc". Knowing what happened before serves zero purpose except to shame. All that effectively matters is what happens from this point forward. You put a process in place this time, to monitor what Ted and Alice are doing. Next time, it's your fault when it breaks, because you were forewarned, and you should have known better. Next time, you know what happened, because you put controls in place.

Or just throw someone under the bus and keep repeating the same mistakes.

[brazzledazzle]

The argument you're having is exactly why blameless post-mortems are so difficult to insert into existing companies. Shifting from a desire for "justice" to "doing what's best moving forward" is really hard for a lot of people.

[mbrutsch]

There is a segment of the populace who feels that every "wrong" must be "punished", and they generally make life miserable for everyone else. Usually no one will speak up for fear of being punished along with the "guilty".