In previous posts, I talked about a couple tactics that have helped me deal with failure: turning “what a failure” into “what a useful experiment” and reminding myself that 0 failure means 0 growth. Today, I’ll share my 3rd tactic: budgeting for failure.
Love this - Could you maybe expand a bit on the mechanics of your budget? Do you budget for these in a ball park way as in 5% -10% of projects will fail this year or do you get more specific and say 1 or 2 of these projects planned for this quarter/half will be a dud?
I think about it as part of portfolio planning, so it's basically a ballpark number. Eg, "if I had to assume ~20% of projects won't go perfectly, which are the ones to make sure are *not* in that 20%? What systems should I set up to track what falls into that 20%?" If I know that a specific project is not going to work well, of course, I try to adjust that project right away to make it more likely to be successful.
I believe your post gets at this concept already, but I feel a really valuable aspect of this approach is to avoid sunk cost fallacy. Which can kick in when failure is not an option i.e. budgeted for
The power of mental accounting...great approach and super insightful as every single piece of content you share, thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_accounting
Love this mindset shift -- we could all benefit from thoughtful budgeting.
Love this - Could you maybe expand a bit on the mechanics of your budget? Do you budget for these in a ball park way as in 5% -10% of projects will fail this year or do you get more specific and say 1 or 2 of these projects planned for this quarter/half will be a dud?
I think about it as part of portfolio planning, so it's basically a ballpark number. Eg, "if I had to assume ~20% of projects won't go perfectly, which are the ones to make sure are *not* in that 20%? What systems should I set up to track what falls into that 20%?" If I know that a specific project is not going to work well, of course, I try to adjust that project right away to make it more likely to be successful.
I believe your post gets at this concept already, but I feel a really valuable aspect of this approach is to avoid sunk cost fallacy. Which can kick in when failure is not an option i.e. budgeted for
Enjoyed the failure series. Thanks for sharing yout thoughts