Thursday, January 6, 2011

How to fail successfully

Today I attended Lean Coffee Toronto's 15th Meetup. What a great group of people and amazing discussions.

We talked about the concept of "failing successfully". Here are a few notes I took:

  • Don't put all your eggs in one basket
  • Make sure you learn lessons for future projects
    • Admit your mistakes frankly
  • When do you stop?
    • Sometimes it's very hard to let go of an idea
    • Always get external feedback -- advisory boards, etc.
  • Example of successful failure: the production of Iron Giant
  • Metrics and measurement:
    • Define success and define failure
    • Did you make money? Did you build your brand?
    • Tie your metrics back to goals
  • Always do a port-mortem

... and some thoughts of my own on the topic:

  • WGMGD -- What gets measured gets done
    • My biggest take from a Services Marketing class I took a while back
  • Don't be "stealthy"
    • Get your product out there as early as possible and get feedback
    • "First to market" and "stolen ideas" are myths
  • "Failure is always an option"

Thanks again everyone for a great meetup!

No comments:

Post a Comment