"Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Forward" is the answer to Agile practices of software success
Last updated: October 21, 2022 Read in fullscreen view
Recommended for you
- 10 Apr 2022
Agile self-organizing teams: What are they? How do they work? 28/435 - 12 Oct 2022 14 Common Reasons Software Projects Fail (And How To Avoid Them) 10/504
- 13 Oct 2021 Outsourcing Software Development: MVP, Proof of Concept (POC) and Prototyping. Which is better? 6/424
- 20 Jan 2022 TIGO Self-Organization Practice: Change Management Workflow 6/430
- 28 Jul 2022 POC, Prototypes, Pilots and MVP: What Are the Differences? 6/606
- 20 Nov 2022 Agile working method in software and football 5/323
- 31 Aug 2022 What are the best practices for software contract negotiations? 5/215
- 16 Jun 2022 Rapid Application Development (RAD): Pros and Cons 5/800
- 05 Mar 2021 How do you minimize risks when you outsource software development? 5/317
- 07 Oct 2025 Case Study: Using the “Messaging House” Framework to Build a Digital Transformation Roadmap 5/45
- 01 Jan 2024 The pros and cons of the Centralized Enterprise Automation Operating model 4/165
- 12 Dec 2021 Zero Sum Games Agile vs. Waterfall Project Management Methods 4/374
- 04 Oct 2022 Which ERP implementation strategy is right for your business? 4/278
- 01 Dec 2023 Laws of Project Management 3/249
- 18 Jul 2021 How To Ramp Up An Offshore Software Development Team Quickly 3/516
- 20 Jan 2021 Fail early, fail often, fail cheap, fail safe but always fail forward 3/688
- 05 Sep 2023 The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects 3/167
- 01 May 2024 Warren Buffett’s Golden Rule for Digital Transformation: Avoiding Tech Overload 2/188
- 02 Dec 2022 Success Story: Satsuki - Sales Management Software, back office app for School Subscription Management 2/219
- 03 Jul 2022 Manifesto for Agile Software Development 2/240
- 11 Nov 2021 What is an IT Self-service Portal? Why is it Important to Your Business? 2/364
- 04 Oct 2021 Product Validation: The Key to Developing the Best Product Possible 2/295
- 12 Oct 2020 The Agile Manifesto - Principle #8 2/447
- 07 Oct 2020 How To Manage Expectations at Work (and Why It's Important) 2/266
- 28 Oct 2022 Build Operate Transfer (B.O.T) Model in Software Outsourcing 2/361
- 02 Nov 2021 [Case Study] Streamlined Data Reporting using Tableau 2/276
- 03 Apr 2021 How digital asset management streamlines your content workflow? 1/312
- 13 Feb 2021 Why is TIGOSOFT a software house for Enterprise Application Development? 1/336
- 12 Aug 2024 Understanding Google Analytics in Mumbai: A Beginner's Guide 1/84
- 06 Mar 2024 [SemRush] What Are LSI Keywords & Why They Don‘t Matter /131
- 21 Jun 2021 6 Useful Tips To Streamline Business Processes and Workflows /515
- 19 Oct 2021 Software development life cycles /628
- 27 Oct 2020 8 principles of Agile Testing /1196
- 09 Oct 2022 Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Agile Methodology /666
- 10 Oct 2022 Should Your Business Go Agile? (Infographic) /108
- 21 Oct 2022 Virtual meeting - How does TIGO save cost, reduce complexity and improve quality by remote communication? /166
- 02 Nov 2022 Frequently Asked Questions about Agile and Scrum /372
- 03 Sep 2022 The secret of software success: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication /186
- 16 Jul 2022 What are disadvantages of Agile Methodology? How to mitigate the disadvantages ? /353
- 01 Dec 2022 Difference between Set-based development and Point-based development /298
- 01 Jun 2022 How Your Agile Development Team is Just Like a Football Team? /206
- 28 Nov 2023 Scrum Team Failure — Scrum Anti-Patterns Taxonomy (3) /228
- 01 Mar 2022 Why Does Scrum Fail in Large Companies? /243
- 06 Nov 2023 How do you streamline requirement analysis and modeling? /184
Traditionally, FAILURE is not accepted in our culture (be it business or society) and it's been seen as a weakness. Failures are discouraged and such discouragement delays the adoption/implementation of “learning” from the failure. Thus, many opportunities to learn from and transform get unnoticed and are left unexplored. The tendency of avoiding failure is due to expectations raising from peer pressure and the barriers built into human nature. In short, we are not wired to accept failure as an option!
Agile concepts vouch for failing fast but, this can be a difficult concept to follow and implement strategically. But, is "Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Forward" a route to enhance rate of success? For ease of reading and reference in this article, let us refer "Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Forward" as "Fail Fast".
Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. - Robert Collier
Steps to implement Fail Fast as a strategy
Following are the ways to implement Fail Fast as a strategy;
- Get a SME: Get a subject matter expert or mentor to imbibe expert opinion. A SME or mentor would honestly assess the progress objectively. In scrum environment, this role can be doubled up by the Product Manager.
- Define Steps to Success: Clearly define Success and steps leading to success by defining interim milestones in the project. Obtain buy in from all stakeholders including customers. Review and update/align the project plan at a regular interval i.e. review the plan on daily basis.
- Test a prototype: Always build a minimally viable product (MVP). Success may not be achieved until a minimally viable product is built and tested. It is also equally important to involve all stakeholders including the Customer in the MVP phase. For a larger project or program, develop a large number of small innovations. Provide a path from idea to commercialization that tests ideas early. This may include making and testing multiple prototypes with stakeholders.
- Voice of Customer: Proactively engage with customer to seek opinion, stress on resolving negative feedback. Find stakeholders / customers who will be critical and listen to what they have to say. This would enable you to embed the voice of customer in this strategic approach. This step can be as simple as interviewing a handful of potential customers to include requirements in to the MVP to start solving existing pain points of the customer.
- Implement 80/20 rule: The Pareto Principle, sometimes called the 80/20 Rule suggests that 20% of the activities on your list will generate 80% of your results. Taken in another direction, 20% of your clients will provide 80% of your referrals, useful feedback, and/or sales. So spend your time on the 20% of those activities that are likely to generate the most results. Don’t be afraid to prune your and team’s to-do list every day. You can also adopt cloud based to do lists and various apps enhancing productivity.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Efficiently engage all stakeholders using available technology resources including Social Media. Millennial stakeholders are mobile 24x7, it becomes necessary to engage them using popular social media options i.e. Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn & WhatsApp.
- Analyze and Act: During planning, execution and monitoring & controlling phase, setup a robust framework to collect and analyze the data for actionable insights and due updates in the strategic approach and project plan.
Fail-Fast Systems in Hardware and Software
From wikipedia: In systems design, a fail-fast system is one which immediately reports at its interface any condition that is likely to indicate a failure. Fail-fast systems are usually designed to stop normal operation rather than attempt to continue a possibly flawed process. Such designs often check the system's state at several points in an operation, so any failures can be detected early. The responsibility of a fail-fast module is detecting errors, then letting the next-highest level of the system handle them.
Fail-fast systems or modules are desirable in several circumstances:
- When building a fault-tolerant system by means of redundant components, the individual components should be fail-fast to give the system enough information to successfully tolerate a failure.
- Fail-fast components are often used in situations where failure in one component might not be visible until it leads to failure in another component.
- Finding the cause of a failure is easier in a fail-fast system, because the system reports the failure with as much information as possible as close to the time of failure as possible. In a fault-tolerant system, the failure might go undetected, whereas in a system that is neither fault-tolerant nor fail-fast the failure might be temporarily hidden until it causes some seemingly unrelated problem later.
- A fail-fast system that is designed to halt as well as report the error on failure is less likely to erroneously perform an irreversible or costly operation.
Software outsourcing fails, because suppliers mess up
Customers blame subcontractors for overpromising and being unqualified to do the job. Outsource vendors complain they weren’t given proper instructions at the outset or project requirements were changed mid-stream. Finger-pointing has to stop. When things go off the track, it’s easy to attack someone else. With so many project flameouts, suppliers may come across as irresponsible and incompetent. But can you blame it on the provider alone? At the end of the day, it is a two-way partnership in which both parties share responsibility for the project’s triumph or agony. More often than not, the onus is on the client to prevent the project debacle and facilitate success in any way possible.
Instead of playing the blame game, take a step back, sit down with your provider and do a post-mortem. In hindsight, what rocked and what sucked? Why did it go awry? What would you do differently, if you had to do the same thing again?
By no means is this list of wrong mindsets exhaustive, but it may serve as a good starting point for making your subcontracting experience more effective and hassle-free. Steer clear of these reefs, otherwise, they can cause your business to capsize. It’s true that outsourcing might hurt you if done wrong. But the good news is that the final outcome is within your grasp. With a competent partner on your side, proper planning and ongoing communication, you can overcome those odds and set your project up for success.
Conclusion
As long as you can learn from the failure and include those lessons in your next attempt, failure can be the best thing that can happen to you. Once you've implemented steps to implement "Fail Fast as a strategy" and though things just aren't shaping up...it’s time to re-define your route to success!
Now is the time to think big, start small & act now....let us enhance the success rate by Failing Fast, Failing Often, Failing Forward !
Explore more on these topics
Guest Blogging: The Definitive Guide
Top Trending Topics
Share This
Link copied!