Sorting Failure

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill (British statesman and writer, 1874-1965)

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  1. Understand the three categories of failure: Preventable Failures: These happen when there's a clear rule or guideline, and someone doesn't follow it. It's like not following a recipe and ruining the cake - not something to be happy about.Complex Failures: Imagine trying something you've done before, but this time, something weird happens that messes it up. These arise from risks inherent to the system, and are neither cause for reproach nor celebration. Intelligent Failures: These are when you try something new and different on purpose, knowing it might not work. Even if it doesn't work out, you can learn from it. These are the only failures worthy of celebration, because they come from taking a thoughtful risk. 
  2.  Calculate how many recent team failures there have been and sort them into preventable, complex or intelligent.
  3. Celebrate the intelligent failures!
  4. Make a plan to encourage more smart failures and get guardrails in place to mitigate the preventable and complex fails.
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