Apollo 13 could have been a disaster. 322,000 kilometres from earth, oxygen levels dropping, power failure. The astronauts were minutes away from catastrophe.
During what was thought to be a routine “cryo stir” where the hydrogen tank is rotated to avoid the supercold gas from settling into layers, an explosion happened and alarm bells signalled from everywhere, the shit had hit the fan.
All the powers of intelligence NASA and its suppliers had to muster were put together to try to bring the boys home.
We all know the story that the astronauts made it home safely so after the accident why did NASA call Apollo 13 a Successful Failure?
What is Failure?
Obviously, the expectation was that Apollo 13 was going to reach the moon and have two astronauts get out and walk around on the surface of the moon for a fun little jaunt and maybe some scientific experimentation.
Failure was anything but getting people to the moon.
However, what was success and failure quickly changed when saving the astronauts’ lives became more important than reaching the moon. Success and failure now were not arbitrary but life or death.
Failing Well
If everything was known then you wouldn’t have to try things. No businesses would fail, and no shots would miss. But the world isn’t known, it is full of assumptions and unknowns. That is why we have to set up tests.
Starting a new project, you have goals, aims, assumptions, known knowns, unknown knowns, known unknowns, and the worst unknown unknowns.
It is right to set up targets of what success should look like. But as you move through the project, your assumptions will be revealed to be correct or incorrect. Some of the unknowns will come out of the left field and bite you in the arse.
The equation has now fundamentally changed. This will require a reassessment of what success looks like. The ability to adapt to new information and more credible information will determine whether or not you can get some value out of the project.
Like what NASA did. They built-in redundancies, removed possible points of failure, added additional batteries for power, and more water storage.
Set up your projects for learning
The first step is to not do a project where failure is fatal. Should you bet billions of dollars on a strange metaverse idea, I don’t think so, but time will tell.
By a project being fatal, I mean that if it fails it will be of such a cost that you can’t do anything else. If your back is against the wall, sure, swing for the fences, but a good strategy is to not bet everything on a long shot.
A successful project starts by being very clear on these four criteria –
- What you are trying to achieve
- What you know
- What you don’t know
- What you assume about your world
Given these four things, you can plot out a course of action where you either get everything right and achieve your goals. Happy Days.
Or you learn that your assumptions were wrong and you can reconfigure what you know, what you don’t know and then how you are going to try to achieve your goals.
Or you reassess your goals and start the process of knowns, unknowns, and assumptions to figure out how to attempt to achieve your goals.
NASA had a Successful Failure because they reassess what success looked like and learned from the mistakes of the project. Obviously, life and death situations make it easier to understand that your goals should change. But if you are in a project and things aren’t working it is not just OK but important to reassess the four criteria.
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 