Mistakes in projects are unavoidable. How can you make the most of failure, and what is important in doing so?
Being agile sounds like freedom, productivity, and adaptability. Agile working methods, especially in Project managementWhat is project management? Project management encompasses all – often standardized – tasks... More, also includes allowing mistakes and seeing failure as a learning opportunity.
But what does that mean in practice? What are variables that cannot be assessed? Where is the optimum point on the scale between "inflexibility due to over-structuring" and "chaos due to too much freedom"?
Agility as a pattern for success and what that has to do with failure
Agile is often (mis)understood as the solution to all project problems. Agility is a pattern for success in uncertain environments with high dynamics. Failure must be recognized at an early stage. Speed is the top priority here, and mistakes that are identified early on are much cheaper than those that only become apparent at the end of lengthy processes.
In start-ups, agile approaches are now the norm and failure is considered acceptable. Small teams maintain good relationships with each other and overcome challenges whose outcome they cannot predict at the outset. With lots of experimentation, this results in a steep learning curve without fear of making mistakes.
So there is a natural agility here, which arises from the openness of the questions asked, the not yet strongly defined corporate structures, and thus little bureaucracy.
Larger companies have a different focus due to their history. They strive to increase productivity by avoiding errors, controlling processes, and performing multiple checks. New insights are only expected when errors occur that are surprising and must be avoided at all costs. Quality assurance is paramount, and management methods such as Six Sigma guarantee success.
However, this controlled, highly structured static approach is now causing problems. Hyper-accelerated markets want fast delivery at every turn. Demanding customers expect business excellence at every individual touchpoint. This cannot be achieved with long-term development processes. More experimentation and, consequently, more failure is needed.
The meaning of failure and why it is still a taboo subject
Every decision involves a degree of uncertainty. Decisions are the alignment of actions to achieve goals. If uncertainty is misjudged or not recognized, a goal will not be achieved. You have failed.
In companies that strive for perfection, there is a perfectly understandable desire to eliminate every source of error. However, this is countered by a culture that allows mistakes to be made and learns from them in order to ultimately achieve a more innovative result.
If you take a step back, it becomes clear that a decision made in good conscience is the right decision, even if it is unsuccessful. Uncertainties cannot be ruled out and in many cases cannot even be foreseen. Short-term developments and external circumstances beyond our control play a role that no one can predict in advance.
Therefore, the question is not whether one will fail, but how and why one will fail and what conclusions one will draw from it. Nevertheless, failure is still frowned upon and unwelcome. What is needed here is a change in the perception of failure.
Dealing with failure
Since failure is inevitable, you should be prepared for it. Corporate culture plays an important role due to its overarching and guiding function. It determines how challenges, successes, and defeats are dealt with. It also dictates what the highest maxim of every action should be. This is where the course is set for the topic of "failure." Any action that does not comply with this maxim is sanctioned and therefore receives little support. If this maxim is "perfection," employees' willingness to develop and change the status quo decreases.
Most "non-learning situations" stem from the fear of making mistakes. We must counteract this strong cultural influence in companies and build trust that mistakes are part of work, indeed, that they are to be expected. Taking a risk is rarely a rational decision. Rather, it is an emotional consideration of whether we can afford to cope with the possible failure, the "social awkwardness." If people feel secure, they dare to accept failure.
Learn from failure
If something does not go as expected, there can be many reasons for this. In an agile setup, failure refers to the absence of success in non-decidable, complex situations.
When implementing a project, it is important to regularly reflect on what went well and what should be avoided in the future. This includes all influencing factors, both from within the team itself and from outside. The agile focus is therefore on humanity, collaboration, and responsiveness.
Even agile projects can fail as a whole. Despite all the flexibility and responsiveness, there are of course limits, most of which are due to business considerations. In a corporate context, we can support agility by identifying reasons for failure in advance and avoiding them where possible.
Common reasons for failure:
- The method does not suit the project and vice versa.
- Unclear and/or unspecific, unrealistic objectives
- Inaccurate communication of objectives and thus differing interpretations
- Change management is not taking place
- Incorrect or no filling of the required roles
- Lack of experience in agile project management
- Lack of communication and transparency between project members and other stakeholders
- There is a lack of support from management.
Would you like some insights into our experiences?
It is clear, then, that a healthy culture for dealing with mistakes and failures is the first step toward successful development. We recognized this early on and bring not only methodology, expertise, and experience to your IT projects, but also a great deal of empathy. This is the key to successful project implementation—we are always available to answer any questions you may have about our approach to project and change management.
Cihan Klingsporn
Senior Account & Marketing Manager
Business Process Automation
cihan.klingsporn@isr.de
+49(0)151 422 05 471
