Category: Agile

Failure. A word that refers to the act of failing or proving unsuccessful.

There have been multiple instances when we decide not to do something because we not sure of being successful. Similarly we sometimes undermined our own efforts to avoid the possibility of a much larger failure.

No one likes to be called a failure, however; what would happen if you knew that you were working to fail or that your work is intended to failing you personally but making someone or something else successful?

Let’s take the example of Toyota Prius. When Toyota decided to work on the concept of a hybrid car, they created 9 teams to work on different engine ideas. So, there were engineers that were trying to create the best hybrid technology possible but they also knew that the probability of creating a successful concept that will potentially revolutionize the automotive industry was very small since there were other 8 teams working on the same idea. Toyota did not form committees that made decisions on which engine idea to embrace but they tried all ideas in multiple scenarios, kept refining the ideas and finally got to one that proved to be the best. It turns out that in a approach like this, the final design turns out to be a collection of smaller ideas from all teams that come together to create innovative products. For Toyota, Prius became synonymous of hybrid just like Kleenex became synonymous of tissues.

Failures are the biggest allies for Product Managers. The value that Product Managers expect to achieve is based on limited analysis and certainty and huge amount of ideation, adaptation to market and most importantly failing and using the failure to learn and build something better. However; when it comes to failures, what differentiates great Product Managers from the good ones is their mindset of failing consciously and intentionally. Here is why:

Plan for failure – Thought leaders cannot stop emphasizing on the fact that failure is opportunity to learn, improve and be successful. As much as this way of thinking is important to keep the positive energy flowing,  there is a huge difference between failing consciously and failure due to unaccounted or unexpected reasons.

While watching  Olympics a few days ago, I noticed the french sprinter Wilhem Belgian  getting disqualified from the 400 meters race and the Olympics due to a false start. While preparing for an event as big as the olympics, an athlete like Wilhem would have laid down a strategy to get to the finals, he had to end his run at the Olympics for the most unexpected reason possible. He was completely devastated when the failure was caused due to a mistake he never imagined would occur and would have been better of completing the race and loosing to better sprinters.

I am sure Wilhem was not 100% sure of winning a medal but he surely wasn’t expecting to loose the way he did.

Pro tip: If you were conscious of failure, you were sure of success.

Build entrepreneurial character – When talking about entrepreneurial characteristics,  tenacity, perseverance, and resilience are the key attributes to success. However, these attributes are not as common. Elon Musk back in 2013 said that the human brain cannot cope with business failure. But at the same time, a human brain responds differently to failures that were completely unexpected versus failures that were expected and were part of the plan to become successful.

An entrepreneurial character does not try to conceive a idea that had a 100% chance of being successful. Most successful entrepreneurs started with an idea, knowing what could get in their way in becoming successful but having a strategy to deal with expected failures and leveraging the small wins along the way to make a lasting impact.

Pro tip: Do your best to plan ahead for success but be aware of the failures that may happen along the way to affirm your assessment and awareness of what could fail and what will work.

Encourage creativity and innovation – The reason for success behind most successful products and services companies like the Apple products, Google or Airbnb has been the unique opportunity to ideate, innovate and be creative. Talking about Google, its most successful innovations came by way of the 20% time given to its employees (as much as people question the existence of this policy at Google now) where they could innovate on new ideas and opportunities. What was even more important was how Google employees were measured when it came to tracking success. In this case, the engineers building the product were their own product managers.

The biggest impact of this approach was the freedom to try new ideas, innovate and  feeling safe to fail. This basically meant that they were in total control of the “why”, the “what’ and the “how” of the product. This kind of environment allowed them to keep away from the pressure of making everything successful right from the word go but also consciously make decisions that might prove wrong in working towards the final right outcome.

Pro tip: Many minds can create many ideas and then come together to produce the awesome.

Conclusion: Leveraging failure consciously in making the right decision is a critical mindset shift for product management. An urge to get things right the first time can significantly constraint human behavior in a way that can lead to a negative impact if things were to go wrong. So next time you site down to ideate, be conscious of your failure as much as your success.