As our public sector face the scissors at one end, and calls for radical restructuring at the other, the words lean and mean are a big part of the current mantra.
Bloated, inefficient or inertia-driven delivery of our public services amounts to waste.
But the fact is, we need waste. It’s an essential part of experimentation. Without trial and error, you won’t get anywhere. I’m worried that in the current zealous mood, we’re going to forget the important role that waste plays.
To be a bit more subtle: what’s good waste, and what’s bad?
Last night I went to the inaugural CockUp Cocktails, a peer meetup for those working in and around social enterprise, organised by Sidekick Studios. You talk about your cockups, over cocktails: a perfect combination. There’s clearly a desire for this kind of thing at the moment. Failcamp has been building around the globe as a chance for people to share their professional messes: ‘Forgive me father, for I accidentally sent my boss the email in which I dissed him.’ And in the UK, the RSA launched The Glory of Failure project last year so we can understand our mistakes better.
image jomcleay
I won’t go into detail on what was said by whom, as the speakers were to their credit incredibly open and candid on their own personal cock-ups. But. Some great general lessons and ideas I can talk about, which at A+E we’re really interested in.
We all know too well that in order to please funders, investors or clients it’s tempting to glide over the bits that went wrong, whether systemic problems, a misguided project in the first place, or simple human errors of the D’oh variety. Fear of recrimination, of wasting money and of career suicide get in the way. And when organisations conduct evaluation or monitoring, the benefits you’d get from an honest assessment go out the window and you end up with a bland ‘success story’ with none of the crucial learning that would actually be constructive. Counter-intuitively these benefits would also extend to organisational reputation and competitive advantage.
So, here are some of the interesting thoughts that came out of last night, in no particular order:
Cockups often happen when different teams or business functions have inherently different agendas
For example, more conservative functions rub up against the risk-taking, creative areas. The real damage though, doesn’t come from the original cock-up, but from straight-jacketing of future programmes, in an attempt to prevent something similar re-occurring. This only results in additional tension between teams. Neutering creativity in order to manage risk is not a very wise strategy.
Lots of cock-ups come when you miss contextual or cultural awareness.
A famous example of this is Orange’s launch in Northern Ireland in 1994. Unsurprisingly, they had to pull their ads with the strapline, ‘The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange.’ Oh dear. But you know what? I think it’s really hard to prevent mistakes like these. No matter how much you check, check and check again, there will always be oversights. If you own up straight away and sort it out, you’ll do much better.
We need to pull back from trying to deliver ambitious projects all in one go.
Don’t conceive initiatives in the first place that, like the banks, are too big to fail. Classic example: pretty much any major government related computer system. Take your pick. In any project delivering social value, we need to take a cue from those developing our best digital and web related projects, who are increasingly using Agile Project Management systems: release budgets slowly, test your proposition to find out whether the direction was right in the first place, get nimble and talk and learn as you go.
Yeah yeah, Lizzie, it’s all very well saying this. But how do you make it happen, especially in organisations not used to this kind of behaviour. Some thoughts:
- Enable individuals to submit cockups anonymously into an ‘airlock’ where you can take action without the situation becoming personal.
- It never hurts to remember the difference between being culpable, being liable, and being complicit.
- Whether it’s your Monday morning meeting or after work drinks, build in time for every member of the team to be able to share their error of the week, and make sure that space is about constructive solutions and learning, not blame.
- Build in a compulsory, exploratory phase into projects to test the proposition and need. Otherwise people race to deliver and you get a ship slowly gliding into iceberg. Instead of promoting a huge vision at the start (which we’re scared to backtrack from). we need to think of difference ways through which we originally sell-in a project to funders/investors/clients.
Some say promote the process (eg. co-design practice), but actually it can be quite hard to sell on process alone, important as this is. Maybe we can look how to sell a range of divergent end-scenarios from the get-go, which is more reassuring than telling people anything is possible, especially when applying for project funding.
- Reconsider the value of free and volunteered services, and whether they actually help you save money. I don’t know about you, but I can remember loads of times where I had a tight budget, blagged a freebie and then experienced major cockups as a result, because our project was low priority. Paying people properly is an obvious way to prevent slipups.
- Think about the potential of turning cockups into a positive, especially for the purposes of marketing. Those I’ve noticed turning their errors into assets include Alex Fleetwood who runs Hide&Seek, a pervasive games agency. He recently penned a blog that listed all the things he got wrong when designing his first game. I have a feeling that didn’t really hurt his business.
This is just a start, but I think it’s showing that it’s what you do with your waste that counts.
In the next blog, Amanda and I will be sharing our top professional cockups each. What are we getting ourselves into?
