How to Fail Fast
In one of our LXCouncil CEO meetings, one CEO talked about how he fails fast. Everyone was intrigued because most of the time, failure takes time and is slow.
The Fail fast is often associated with the lean startup methodology - rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, Entrepreneurs and companies test their vision/ideas/products continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late - enabling a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
This is how he does it.
He gives all his ideas 6 months at most to prove themselves. Along the way he reviews progress, what is working, what is not working, makes tweaks, and monitors at any point whether to pull the plug. If after 6 months the results and learnings aren’t worthy to continue and make the experiment permanent, then the effort is aborted.
Science writer and producer Ann Druyan on the process of improvement said:
"Test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those ideas that pass the test. Reject the ones that fail. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. And question everything, including authority. Do these things and the cosmos is yours."
An important goal of the fail-fast philosophy is to avoid the sunk cost effect, which is the tendency for humans to continue investing in something that clearly isn’t working because it’s human nature for people to want to avoid failure. Failing fast seeks to take the stigma out of the word "failure" by emphasizing that the knowledge gained from a failed attempt actually increases the probability of eventual success.
What if you gave your client the ability to test their ideas within a budget and timeframe?
What could happen regarding new ideas and improved customer experience?
What if you encouraged your client to question the status quo?
Imagine the company’s results and everyone’s level of satisfaction?
Think about testing a few ideas at the same time with your clients. Don’t just limit them to one. And the faster they get an idea tested the faster they can insert another one. Fewer things make a CEO happier than having new ideas being tested and implemented. That equates to progress and progress you were part of.
