To reduce the pain of failed projects, get small

I enjoyed Gretchen Gavett's post last week on the HBR Blog Network entitled "The Hidden Indicators of a Failing Project." In it, she discusses how to determine whether projects are going bad (before costly, late public failures, such as the launch of the healthcare.gov website).

Gavett rightly points out that we have biases that prevent us from admitting that our project may not be going as well as we'd like - such as the urge to avoid the recriminations and criticism that comes with calling a project that is going off the rails. The "quiet fixing" mentality also rules, as one of Gavett's sources states: "people actually think they can turn [a failing project] around, so they don’t bring it up." She passes along several pieces of advice to help diagnose problem projects: e.g., cast a wide net of knowledge, revisit requirements regularly, etc.

In my view, the most effective way to prevent big, expensive project failures is to break projects up into smaller chunks. Large projects have large, abstract goals and take a long time to complete - and a long time before end customers get a look at what was delivered (see: healthcare.gov). In uncertain situations (i.e., most projects), it is better to have clear goals than a completely defined plan.

When projects are decomposed into smaller deliverables, each chunk can be specified at a level to deliver value to the end-customer - instead of abstract deliverables such as diagrams, specs, etc. The customer (as opposed to project team members) determines whether the project meets requirements. Smaller projects with clear objectives are easier to measure. Due to this clarity, failures are not only less frequent, but are discovered more quickly and are more contained. The inevitable changes to project requirements are absorbed more easily because smaller pieces can be adapted cheaply. The epitome of this type of approach is the Toyota Production System, which pushes improvement responsibility to the lowest possible level on the factory floor, and through many many iterations of tiny projects, adapts a highly complex production process to the changing needs of the global car market.

So, to reduce the cost and pain with large project failures, do one thing: get small.

Autotuning Mr. Rogers - what can result from a culture of intelligent failure

I had the opportunity last week to talk to a group of project managers and customer support managers at a large tech company about learning from mistakes. They were most interested in the "contract for intelligent failure" that Rita McGrath proposed. This contract specifies, for a particular workgroup, the parameters around acceptable failure. It defines what acceptable failure is and creates a zone of safety for people trying new things.

Now I've just read "How I Got My Team To Fail More" by Jason Seiken on the HBR Blog Network.  Seiken, head of PBS' digital operations, was able to break through his unit's risk aversion and complacency - which caused growth to stagnate - by mandating that they fail more. Seiken recounted how the team learned how to work to this new objective:

In a beautifully ironic twist, the failure metric itself initially failed. We originally envisioned the metric as a formal KPI in each staffer’s annual performance review. But we soon realized we had created a contradiction: You can’t build a culture that values rapid iteration by simply changing an annual performance cycle. We needed daily reinforcement of the desirability of risk-taking and failing fast.

So instead of spending cycles working with HR to create a KPI measuring lack of failure, we focused on endlessly repeating the “must fail” message.

The change was rapid and profound. Some staff were uncomfortable with the new culture and left. Others began taking risks. The product manager working on our first augmented reality site for PBSKids.org ditched her plans for months of customer research and testing in favor of a 10-week sprint to launch. The site failed. The product manager? She received a spot bonus and her “smart failure” was listed as a top accomplishment in her glowing annual review....

Crucially, we redefined success. When our first foray into web-original video production, a safe, TV-type series called “The Parent Show,” launched to fairly good reviews, we resisted the temptation to declare victory. Instead, the team challenged itself to risk breaking the PBS mold by creating a truly YouTube-native show.

This led to the Mr. Rogers remix, “Garden of Your Mind,” which auto-tuned old clips so Mr. Rogers bursts into song. Within 48 hours, it rose to the top of the most viewed and most shared videos charts on YouTube.

Before the failure metric, the team would have considered a Fred Rogers music video to be risky at best, sacrilege at worst. Instead, the culture change triggered by the failure metric gave the team comfort that even if this blew up in their face, they would be protected.

Ordering people to fail more doesn't work unless they are given the tools to take intelligent risks. What would your "contract for intelligent failure" look like?

Here's an example of the residue of the failure-tolerant culture: