I took part in my first triathlon on the weekend. Perhaps not the statement you expected to read in a Technology blog, but humour me for a moment.
I arrived at the start in great spirits. The sun was shining, there were lots of cool things going on and I had a good feeling about the day. Registration was quick and painless. I was put into the “Vets” race despite my insistences that I was not qualified, and other than a friendly puppy with a sore paw didn’t feel confident trying to help animals.
The race started, I swam, I cycled and everything was going well until I had a puncture. My race was over and a black cloud followed me home. I felt my day had been wasted, the preparation was for nothing and I had failed. That was until the results were published that evening and I realised I had recorded a swim time just seconds behind the winner and was comfortably in third place when I pulled out. Far better than I ever expected to do in my first race.
Instead of a feeling of failure I realised I had done well, and started thinking about preparation for the next race. In a few minutes I had a list of 10 things I could do to be better prepared the next time. I felt positive and felt I had achieved something.
Back to technology. How many projects have you initiated that have failed to deliver in some way? It can be a hard question to ask of yourself, but even the best planning in the world can’t mitigate factors outside your control. I was once part of a team which was well over a year into a CRM implementation. A huge amount or resource had been committed, and it seemed that the project had reached a critical mass – what could possibly go wrong?
The vendor folded and although the product was still in existence, continued support and development were no longer guaranteed. The only option to defer future risk was to cancel the implementation and revisit the initial shortlisted vendors. This time round the software selection, configuration, testing and implementation was so much simpler. Most of the hard work was already done. The initial development mistakes had been made, lessons learned and project strategy updated accordingly.
Most, if not all, project methodologies promote analysis of past issues as a fundamental part of the project lifecycle. My experiences this weekend reminded me that there are valuable lessons to be learned in failure as well as success.
Issues log anyone?