Fail Fast—Are you serious? Stop Failing…

Welcome to Part 6 of my 7-part series on Why You’re an Agile Failure. Today’s focus will be on failing. What is the benefit of failing? How often should you fail? Is failing necessary? In terms of my personal leadership style, my elevator leadership pitch has ALWAYS been One Learns More from His Failures Than All of His Successes Combined. Yet, I think Agile has encouraged failure to the point of using it as an excuse for success. As I think about the concept of failure, I am often reminded of the following quote by C.S Lewis, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something.” In a more practical sense, dictionary.com defines failure simply as ‘the lack of success’.

The intent behind the mantra of fail fast, fail often in Agile has always been about the concept of reducing the cost of mistakes. It has never been about the premise that failing is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. There is a clear link between failure and innovation. Failures can turn small mistakes into creativity, which has the potential to lead to success.

You might be wondering why I am writing about failure since I still haven’t gotten to a real point. Agile, in general, encourages failure to the point that we accept it as the norm rather than the exception. In every historical waterfall model, where project managers were considered a great thing, failure was despised almost to the point that it drove the mindset of the entire program or project. I think we have gone to the opposite end of the spectrum with Agile and need to course correct to meet in the middle. I don’t celebrate failures. Nor do I let my teams celebrate them. I encourage learning and innovation from failing; but I never want to fail. I want to succeed. Think about it this way. If your agile teams drive innovation from the beginning, they don’t need a failure to ideate or innovate. Innovation should be ingrained into everything they do. Learning as you go is not the same thing as failing as you go.

I admit that I am from a generation where the psychology behind failure is simply an equation of hard work + time = success (aka not failure). This is not a flawed theory, but it potentially could create mental roadmaps to accepting failure. I am self-aware enough to admit that I may have a mental block when it comes to failing. I believe that failure is a bad thing. Agile has abused the concept of failure; and we simply don’t have a mechanism in place within Agile to self-correct this overreach. The self-organized team model is flawed when the team needs to be led in a different direction. The Manifesto, albeit designed generically on purpose, has left us open to overreach after overreach within Agile. I see it every day.

I think it’s an oxymoron to discuss failure without discussing success. Let’s take a moment to deep-dive success. Is it really that wrong to celebrate success? Here’s a provocative thought. Is it really that wrong to celebrate individual successes or are we only allowed to celebrate team successes? I used to believe that a team is only as successful as its weakest link, and the team lived and died by their collective failures or successes. Agile has changed my mind on that. Agile has allowed individuals to succeed and to fail without directly helping them. Self-organized teams are not always equipped to directly lead themselves to manage their own failures. They need to be led. Coaching, no offense to Scrum Masters, is not leading. Failure doesn’t always have a clear path to ideation or innovation. Sometimes, failure needs to be led by somebody who has failed before and, quite frankly, hates it.

So where does this leave us? From my perspective, failure is a learning tool; I always want to learn. Failing is not a reason to not succeed, and planning to fail is short sighted. Planning to succeed through ideation and innovation is my preferred approach. When failure happens, it needs to be managed quickly and decisively, which requires leadership not simple coaching. Agile leadership should be a good thing. Agile leadership has a role in Agile. Agile leadership can minimize failure, focus on success, and ensure successful deliveries.

 David Filer

'The Divergent Agile Leader'

[email protected]

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/davidfiler1/