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
• "Parallel prototyping" helps -- better results with the same overall effort
• 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"
• Mythbusters and Adam Savage are awesome :)

Thanks again everyone for a great meetup!