What do you do if your product development fails?

Following are three scenarios: 1. Automotive Component Failure: A new automotive component experiences premature wear, leading to warranty claims. Analysis reveals a material defect from a supplier oversight. 2. Industrial Equipment Malfunction: Specialized industrial equipment faces frequent breakdowns due to a design flaw in a critical mechanism. Analysis identifies inadequate stress-testing during development. 3. Consumer Electronics Product: A handheld device suffers from battery and overheating issues. Analysis reveals a software bug causing excessive power consumption. In each of these examples, Acknowledging and analyzing failures helps engineering teams understand root causes and implement preventive measures for the future.

Show leadership, draw a line under it quickly and move on. Capture the learnings, extract what value you can for the future. Take responsibility as a leader, work out the best course of action with the key stakeholders involved, sort it out. If third parties (customers, suppliers of others) are involved, then work through the correct and proper processes to keep them appraised. Manage relationships. Make sure the paperwork is put in place. Understand the consequences and implications. Keep it practical, clear and simple. Move onto the next challenge, take people with you, accept failure is an important part of longer term success. Communicate. ????

The first step is to recognize that product development by nature is a series of failures and successes. If you are building something new, it is expected that there will be learnings along the way. It is up to leadership to ensure there is a culture that encourages and supports open communication and experience sharing. The second step is to ensure that every failure is being documented as a learning milestone, discussed and use as a reference point from which to continue forward.

When product development fails, it's important to analyze the reasons behind the failure, gather feedback from stakeholders and users, learn from the experience, and iterate. This may involve reassessing the market demand, refining the product concept, improving development processes, or reallocating resources. Ultimately, failure can provide valuable insights that can lead to future success.

Very sad at times but it happens. Find out why the project failed. Group the reasons into what you had control over and what you didn't. Don't worry about the things you can't control. Just be sure to know of them for the next project. Ask yourself "What could I have done to avoid, mitigate, or solve those problems?" Then don't repeat those mistakes.

I would differ slightly from the write-up of this step on the left: The analysis shouldn't be done by the team or business leadership without the team. One needs to gather the team's perspective, since they are the ones closest to the work, before analyzing the cause of the failure and actions. Also, failure is inherent in new product development, Christensen's research found that only 5%-15% of marketed new products succeeded. One can increase the odds of success with robust processes, team empowerment, etc..

Effective communication and collaboration are essential post-failure. Sharing analysis results and lessons learned fosters transparency and collective learning. Listening to team perspectives and feedback encourages a culture of trust and innovation. Recognizing team efforts and celebrating achievements boosts morale and maintains motivation amid challenges. Emphasizing collective responsibility promotes resilience and strengthens team cohesion for future endeavors.

Taking the time to test the product with the target user base and having the courage to make changes or demises is a key skill. A lot of people see change as a failure. However, you have simply found one way that what you are doing does not work. Keep going until you find the way that does work!

Deciding to pivot or persevere is critical post-failure. Pivoting entails adjusting aspects like value proposition or target market based on insights gained. Persevering involves refining the original vision based on received feedback. Utilizing frameworks like lean startup or validation boards aids in making informed decisions aligned with strategic goals and market realities, ensuring resilience and adaptability in product development.

In a past assignment, I got a local ecosystem up with a respected authority in Thailand to do a press conference to communicate success and positive narrative for the platform with credible authority (namely national newspaper and national news television with leverage on social media). This was in Indonesia and Thailand.

Implementing and testing changes post-decision is crucial. Defining clear goals, hypotheses, and metrics ensures focused experimentation. Employing agile methods facilitates rapid and iterative delivery of changes. Involving stakeholders and collecting feedback fosters collaborative validation. Monitoring and evaluating results enable continuous learning and refinement, guiding future iterations for improved product-market fit and success.

Great process, Sound user understanding : great timeless product consumers love Great process, no user understanding: no adoption numbers, high opex costs Lousy process, sound understanding: great product ideas pipeline Lousy process, no understanding: quit products Why? countless products in the world which are being built and updated everyday. Clearly many processes underpin these products. Processes around developing shaping updating building maintaining the product. Still, products fail. In fact, 90+ % do and those that remain click with the customer. Having a process ensures delivery doesnt deviate from one version to the next, but if that process isnt guided by the user, the end customer, the process holds no water.

Reviewing and refining the product development process is vital for continuous improvement. Identifying strengths and weaknesses in tools, methods, and workflows informs optimization efforts. Recognizing opportunities and challenges guides skill development and resource allocation. Documenting and sharing best practices fosters a culture of learning and innovation within the team and organization, promoting efficiency and effectiveness in future endeavors.

With every failure comes an opportunity to learn. Failure isn't a setback. Failure that is reviewed is very useful. It helps you grow and evolve. You should embrace a culture of intentional experimentation, go back to your drawing board with deeper insights on users by understanding them more closely and learn from iterations.

Success should be measured in terms of learning and not repeating mistakes. If an organization believes that failing to continue a development project is failure, it will curtail creativity and motivation.

We're bound to repeat our mistakes in one way or the other if we fail to learn from them. Yes, failure itself is part of the process, but so it learning, unlearning and relearning. Environments like this forster the right culture and further breeds innovation.

Continual learning and innovation drive product development excellence. Embracing failure as a learning opportunity fosters resilience and growth mindset. Cultivating curiosity and adaptability encourages experimentation and adaptation to evolving market dynamics. Seeking customer feedback and market insights informs iterative improvement and ensures alignment with evolving needs. Exploring new technologies and trends enables proactive adaptation and capitalization on emerging opportunities, sustaining competitive advantage and fostering long-term success.

Always go back to the drawing board. That's why I advocate for adoption of agile methodologies which allows you create in batches.