50 shades of fail

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50 Shades of FAIL Personal insights and a summary of ideas from inspiring authors, thought leaders, teachers and co-workers through years of Systems Development and Agile Leadership experience.

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Personal insights from ScrumMaster Ulrika Park and a summary of ideas from other thought leaders in systems development and Agile leadership.

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Page 1: 50 Shades of Fail

50 Shades of

FAILPersonal insights and a summary of ideas from inspiring authors, thought leaders, teachers and co-workers through years of Systems Development and Agile Leadership experience.

Page 2: 50 Shades of Fail

Ulrika ParkScrumMaster, SmartBear [email protected]@ulrikapark

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“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.”

- Confucius

Learn how you can succeed in the most common areas of system fails. Here are 50 of the most common “fails” in software development and how you can learn from them.

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System: Failure

Systems thinkers say our behaviors are the result of the surrounding system, that errors made by people are caused by the system.

But the systems are created by people, and people are the only ones who can change the system. So, what do you do to change the system?

Get allies.

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Fail: IT

Governments and businesses continue to throw billions of dollars into IT black holes.

That’s quite an oxymoron: So many failures in IT projects. Still, there has been an extra-ordinary development of IT services the last 50 years.

Do…… Waste money to explore, fail and learn.Stop….. Wasting money by ignorance

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Fail: Not Delivering

At the moment the most famous IT failure in Sweden is the “One IT Road Map” project that one bank was working on for several years. So many people spent so much money on this project, and in the end they didn’t deliver.

This is the traditional Big Design Up Front (BDUF) concept. After analysis for too long time, requirements are outdated at the time for practical work. Now, hopefully, they know how not to run IT projects.

Do….. Share your failure! Others can learn from you.Stop….. Big Bang initiatives

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Fail: Handoff

A thorough analysis up front isn’t necessarily all that bad, and the process of gathering facts, trying out concepts and analyzing domain can take up a lot of time.

The error often comes in the time for handoff. After doing all this thinking and analyzing, one-way documentation is handed off to the project team, which now has to do the thinking all over again.

Do….. Keep your analysts, architects and designers through the whole developmentStop….. Handoffs

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Fail: Courage

IT failures can continue for years due to cowardice managers, silent project managers or sheepish teams.

On a similar note, IT failures can be stopped by courageous managers, vocal project managers or confident teams.

Do….. Dare to say “No”Stop….. Keeping quiet

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Fail: .com

Most of us remember the .com bubble in the late-90s. So many crazy initiatives, crazy stories, no account for money. Seemingly simple problems were solved with amazingly large budgets.

Thank you so much everyone who contributed to the bubble! Without you we wouldn’t have e-commerce, e-reading, mobile services, awesome navigations, social networks and streaming media today.

Do….. Stop thinking, innovate even if you end up losingStop…..Trying to innovate without being crazy

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Fail: Focus

Why do all brilliant developers and technical workers put their time into new Facebook apps instead of, with the help of technology, working on saving the world from climate catastrophes, starving children and oppression?

Do….. Focus on human developmentMaybe….. Stupid Facebook apps are the reason for the huge spread of democratic media

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Fail: Complexity

Complexity in systems make systems thinking fail. Not necessarly bad, just less optimizable. Do you know if your system is complex or not?

Do…... Amplify and dampen behaviors in complex systemsStop….. Blaming the system when it’s complexity

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Fail: TestSome of the most common failures in software development are:

• No usability testing • No behavior testing• No acceptance testing• No business testing• No unit testing• No performance testing• No security testingSeeing a theme? Services and products just work better with tests.

Do….. Test now!Stop….. Waiting for code or extra time

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Fail: Curiosity

When you stop being curious, you’re as good as dead.

Be curious about your co-workers across the office. Be curious about your users. Be curious about customers. Be curious about your own limits.

Curiosity is evolution.

Do….. Look around youStop….. Looking inside yourself

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Fail: Outside-In Thinking

Everyone talks about outside-in thinking, but how many teams actually apply this idea?

Do you apply? Do you go outside your tribe to find out? Do you go outside your office to talk with users? Do you let the outside world into your office? Do you admit you don’t know anything about the outside for every minute you are not there?

Do….. Go SeeStop….. Speculating

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Fail: Comfort Zone

Do you fall into the same patterns over and over?

Do you test the same way you’ve always tested? Do you analyze as you’ve always analyzed? Document as you’ve always done?How about your design? And decision making? Goals?

Welcome to the comfort zone.

Do….. Find and try a new techniqueStop….. Blindly repeating yourself

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Fail: Ignorance

Nothing to add here.

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Fail: Discipline

With discipline, you succeed. The more disciplined you are, the more likely you’ll succeed in testing, in design, in analysis, in leadership, in teamwork, in methods, in Agile.

How do you gain discipline?

Be relentless. Keep coming back to the practice when you stray from the path.

Do….. Working agreementsStop….. Follow the crowd

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Fail: Groupthink

This psychological phenomenon has lead to crashed space crafts, World Wars and, for us, failed IT services and investments.

Do….. Aggregation of opinionsStop….. Continuous problem solving within closed groups

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Fail: Blah, Blah, Blah…

Okay, let me be a bit more clear:

Talking without a message. Writing without clarity. Setting goals without acting. Instructions without respect for the reader.Documentation without purpose, recipients or maintenance.

Do….. Consider the recipient of your message, visualize, get feedback and act.Stop….. Writing heavy documents or fancy statements just to feel good about yourself

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Fail: Documentation

This could be either a lack of documentation or an overflow of documentation. Neither is helpful, and documentation needs to be helpful.

Have you tested your documentation lately? If you’re not sure who to test it with, or don’t know the recipient, then why did you bother writing it in the first place?

Do…… Get to know the recipient of your documentation. Find out what she wants. Ask someone else to summarize the core of your doc.Stop…… Document by habit and feel good about it

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Fail: Communication

Communication is the second largest cause of all systems failures. Many research on project failures points to this.

Do….. Find ways to have real conversationsStop….. Emailing

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Fail: Constraints

People work most productively under well-thought-out constraints. Empowerment without some frames and pillars to hold on to will fail.

Leadership is to find good balance in constraints.

Do….. Decide on broad, clear constraints that allow your team to think and actStop….. Micromanaging or ignoring the need for rules

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Fail: Trust in People

Do you trust your manager? If not, what would make you trust them? Tell your manager.

Do you trust your co-worker? If not, what would make you trust them? Tell your co-worker.

Do you trust your team? If not, what would make you trust them? Tell your team.

Do….. Make an effort to gain trustStop….. Believing people around you trust you by default

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Fail: Trust in Technology

Do you trust your software? If not, what would help you trust it?

More tests? More information from your users? Shorter delivery cycles?

Go get it. When you trust your software, your stakeholders will trust you.

Do….. Whatever it takes to improve trustStop….. Waiting for others to do it for you

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Fail: Business Alignment

Failures in IT projects are often a result of failure in business and IT communication.

What have you done lately to bridge this gap?

Do….. Take the first step. Invite the other side to your party (or just over to your desk).Stop….. Blaming the other side

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Fail: Requirements

Failures in requirements are still one of the most common causes of failure in IT.

Requirements = Communication between business and IT.

Do….. Find ways to have continuous conversations with the supplier or client.Stop…… Emailing

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Fail: Resources

People are people. They are not resources. They are not capital. They are humans.

Do….. Treat people as thinking beingsStop….. Calling them resources

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Fail: Opportunities

I’m sure we miss business opportunities every day. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but there’s no excuse for lack of focus or lack of courage to stop what we’re doing to go for the opportunity or take risks.

Do….. Dare to stop the line when you see an opportunityStop….. Keeping your stakeholders comfortable

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Fail: Plans

Plans are nothing, planning is everything

A plan is just a hypothesis of the future; treat it as a hypothesis. Test the plan and adjust it with new empirical data.

Do….. Communicate a plan as what it is – an ideaStop….. Viewing a plan as fact

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Fail: Estimates

How many times have you heard about, or worked off of, estimates that weren’t accurate?

The latest story I heard: A project that was estimated to take two months turned out to be a 16-month project, which actually succeeded in value.

Do….. Continue to update and share estimates during the project as you gain more informationStop….. Acting as if initial estimates are the truth

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Fail: Time

“Time is not important, only life is important” – Mondoshawan, The Fifth Element

When time flies I stop and think, “What is really important, right now?” Without prioritization I’m for sure gonna fail.

Do….. What is really important right nowStop….. Multi-tasking

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Fail: Creativity

When professional people come together to set goals and a vision for the future, they tend to schedule meetings to get things structured and completed quickly.

You can’t schedule creativity. What you need is to get out of the office.

Do….. Go on a boat and have dinner with colleaguesStop….. Filling your schedule with meetings

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Fail: Objectives

Pia Gideon and other friends have told me, “We usually put 80% of our time in defining vision, goals and targets; 20% to understand our current situation.”

If you flip this around, true understanding and clear objectives will appear by themselves.

Do….. Put in a lot of time to map your current situationStop….. Putting a lot of time into defining the perfect objectives

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Fail: Measures

Defining a measure will take your team, product or organization somewhere.

Lack of measures will lead to a lack of clarity in direction.

Still, you will get what you measure.

Do….. Be carefulStop….. Counting money. Qualitative measures can take you further.

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Fail: Incentives

So you want your team to act as a team?

Are they measured as a team or as individuals? Can they state their incentives to work as a team, to get the slow member on board, to let go of pride, to help the other team? Are there really incentives to do any of that?

Do you get any reward for acting as a team? If not – tell an influencer.

Do….. Reward the effort you wantStop….. Bullsh*tting about team work if individual performance is what really counts

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Fail: Capacity

Do you have a grand initiative going on? A cross-organizational project? Nothing happens?

Did they get the capacity or room to engage? Capacity is key for action.

Do….. Start with allocating capacity. Then initiate programs or projects.Stop….. Starting initiatives without capacity

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Fail: Supplier-Client relations

The supplier wants to cheat you.

The client wants to get everything for free.

These are most common assumptions I have met about suppliers and clients. Why on earth are you even working together?

Do….. Find a supplier or client that you actually like and trust. Make them partnersStop….. Buying from or selling services to “counterparts”

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Fail: Envy

So much trouble is caused by envy. This is especially true in large organizations. Envy will kill your position, your team, your organization and the sources of your success.

Do….. Make an effort to stifle envy when you see it in your workplaceStop….. Waiting for someone else to stop it

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Fail: Silos

Does anyone today really believe we can succeed in business by continuing to work in isolated silos like “finance,” “marketing,” or “IT”?

Well, it worked once before, so is it really a failure?

Let your customers decide.

Do….. Map and visualize your customers’ journey through the companyStop….. Acting as if customer experience ends at your doorstep

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Fail: Silos in SilosEditors doing editing.Web department doing website.Mobile department doing mobile.Back-end systems group doing back end.Customer service doing customer dialogue.

All on their own.

Do….. Cross silo teams. Yes, it’s hard and demands a lot of slack and idle time, but the result will be worth it.Stop….. Creating even more silos

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Fail: Matrix Organizations

One idea that is popular is to have functional managers leading groups of people with similar skill sets, then having cross-functional projects lead by project managers.

This idea sounds very appealing. The problem is, capacity is never there. Managers try to make deterministic plans of resource allocation to address this, but these plans continue to fail.

Do….. Create long-term feature teams, product teams and process teams insteadStop….. Wishful thinking of deterministic resource allocation

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Fail: Slack

To achieve any kind of change, we need to give some slack. But how are you supposed to create that space of slack without creating an organization full of slackers?

Do….. Decide a time limit for slack (for example one day, two hours/week, etc.) and start from thereStop….. Assuming change will take place without changing conditions

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Fail: Sticking to the Rules

“We have always done it this way,” shouldn’t be an argument, explanation or reason for anything.

If everyone took that as an answer no evolution would have ever happened.

Do….. Question the ones saying thatStop….. Do as we’ve always done

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Fail: Be Embarrassed

Have you ever been on stage squirming in agony as you fail to hit that high note or nail the punch line?

We have to make a fool of ourselves sometimes in order to develop ourselves and our surroundings. That’s how we change, how we grow.

Do….. Step out of your comfort zone and make yourself look stupid once in a whileStop….. Playing cool

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Fail: Maps

Some failures can send you in the wrong direction for a long time.

Everyone expected an Apple failure after Steve Jobs, was this a self-fulfilling prophecy?

How much can a single failure, in this case Apple Maps, damage a brand? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Do….. Move on, learn from mistakes and deliver better stuff next timeStop….. Releasing too poor quality stuff

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Fail: Forms

How many times have you filled out an extensive form, pressed the wrong button and lost an hour’s worth of work?

How many times have you unknowingly been charged for something after pressing a button on a form?

Nothing makes users as mad as forms.

Do….. Usability test your forms!Stop….. Believing that users will follow happy path

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Fail: DesignWith design you steer actions.

By design you can steer behaviors.

By design you can change behaviors.

By design you can cement behaviors.

Do….. Hire a user experience designer to your team - Now!Stop….. Deprioritizing design work

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Fail: Operations

When our fancy project is delivered, the real action starts. At this point, money is often running low and everyone has moved on to the next project.

For successful business, you have to operate your service or product.

Do….. Include operation in your designStop….. Believing any software release is ever over

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Fail… To Fail

The worst thing you can do when trying to achieve something great is to never fall. Could you have ever learned to ride a bike if you weren’t willing to fall first?

You can’t excel without failures.

Many great leaders have a miserable history of failures.

Do….. Strive to failStop….. Hold too tight to the boundary

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Fail… And Recover

Great entrepreneurs often have a miserable history of failures, and yet they keep coming back with new ideas - adjusted ideas.

They brush the dust of the shoulders and go back to the arena.

Do….. Instantly, get back up on your feetStop….. Believing it’s not your path

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Fail: A Necessity

How can you succeed if you don’t know what it means to fail? If you’re on the top without failures in your luggage, expect something to happen.

Failure is part of life and human development.

Do….. FailStop….. Being arrogant

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Fail: Fast

The sooner you fail, the sooner you recover.

Since your product or service will inevitably fail in someway (by target, by quality or by design) it’s better to pinpoint the problems early so you have the chance to refactor, improve and adjust it based on the new information.

This is the point of short release cycles.

Take a look back at the first versions of Google Docs. How good were those?

Do….. Get it out!Stop…... Trying to be perfectly “safe”

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Fail: Forward

We can use failure as a tool, as with any other experience. Use it as a stepping stone for success.

By knowing failures will happen, we might even be able to avoid the worst ones.

By standing tall, facing the storm and admitting when we fail, we will make a new and better delivery for our beloved customers.

Have you ever been there?

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Some inspirations and sourcesStandish Group – Chaos ReportAuthors:John C. MaxwellTom deMarcoDan RoamMary & Tom PoppendieckW. Edwards DemingGojko Adzic @gojkoadzicKimball FischerDave Snowden @snowdedDavid J. Anderson @agilemanagerEsther Derby, Diana LarsenJeff Patton @jeffpatton Craig LarmanJames Surowiecki

Friends & other thinkers:Abraham LincolnContra Mestre BoquinhaAnette Lovas @nettanisAnders EklundPer Axbom @axbomArne Roock @arneroock Agile Alliance Board MembersPia GideonMartin Persson #OutdoorFridayEisenhower

TheFunTheory.comFifth Element movieStockholm Improvisationsteater

And many, many others… people I worked with, organizations & authors.

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Find more cool resources on our blog and on Twitter via @SmartBear