Little Successes are More Fun than Big Failures
Having a bunch of little successes over time is a lot more fun than a big stinking failure after working hard on a project for years.
Well, of course, right? Isn’t it obvious that success is better than failure?
Yet why do most organizations, especially big companies, continue to produce big failure after big failure?
Look at what the federal government spends on failed IT projects each year. This happens across many agencies: FBI, DoD, DoL, DoJ, USPTO, etc etc. The private sector doesn’t do much better either. Look at the cluster that is HP’s TouchPad. Or what’s happening with Yahoo!.
There’s a solution for most of these failures: building from small successes instead of some pie in the sky idea that may not correspond to reality. This approach is essentially what the Lean Startup methodology teaches and a big part of what Agile software development is about.
Build from actual strengths that are grounded in reality, not from how you envision yourself or your organization in your head. Keep the fun little successes coming and in time you’ll create a big success without the risk of the big failure.
