Here's how you can bounce back and stay motivated after a failure in Product R&D.

You actually want your know of your product works as intended. As heartbreaking as failure is, it would be thousands of times worse if your product failed in the field. Nobody wants that. Be grateful you caught the failure and fix it!

Once failure is occurring do not lose our confidence, investigate and strongly come back to the reality and overcome the failures occurred, come back with a strong process.

It's important to properly define "failure." When a very valid and legitimate business decision is made to close a project in a timely manner, that may be a success. I would recommend starting with properly defining success and failure. Actual R&D failures might include poor performance and lackadaisical productivity. Moving forward based on bias or assumptions rather than validating design features could be a failure. A team might fail to robustly consider project risks. Any time there is a perceived failure or actual failure, a postmortem analysis should be conducted to brainstorm (objectively) the potential root causes. From there, document lessons learned and a go-forward plan that mitigates repeating the same failure.

Accepted reality.... More than failures are going to be successful. However every success reason as a failure mode learning. Every forthcoming new pipelines are bright learning and it's going to success path.

Setbacks are inevitable in R&D, but they offer crucial learning opportunities. We can gain insights into what doesn't work, refine our approaches, and ultimately accelerate progress. It's natural to feel frustrated by these hurdles. However, by acknowledging and processing these emotions, we can approach the situation with a growth mindset. A thorough analysis, including data review and root cause identification, will help us understand what led to the failure and prevent similar issues in the future. Transparency is key. If the timeline needs adjustment, be upfront with your management and customers. Propose a revised plan with realistic deadlines and keep them informed throughout the process.

Shore up your assumptions, then address the root causes of the failure. What caused the failure? Does the design need to improve? How about the specifications or test methods? Do you trust your design inputs? Look at the severity of the failure to put it in perspective. Get the team to own the solution so everyone can feel like they contributed to the eventual “win.”

Product Innovations are fraught with failures, as is the case with most innovations and R&D. Reframing and doing a lessons learnt after failures is key to each team. Teams have to be resilient to bounce back from failures and think what can be taken to the next project as learnings. Easier said than done

As a medical product developer, your job is to create new and useful medical products. On your worst day, your job is attempting to make the world a better place. Remember that. This profession puts our patients and users above everything else to improve the human condition. It’s a hard but noble profession!