Presentation delivered July 15, 2016 for Cerner DevCon, an annual internal conference held for technologists at Cerner Corporation. Video forthcoming at https://www.youtube.com/user/CernerEng This presentation is Creative Commons licensed and you are welcome to contact me for an editable version of the slide deck. Abstract: While it’s easy to pay lip service to the idea of innovating by failing fast, humans are both neurally geared and financially incentivized to avoid failure. We’ve all heard the tales of woe: blameless reviews that were anything but blameless; encouragement to work on an experimental project with punishment being the primary result of its failure; and the associated fear of doing anything new, speculative or untried. The results are simple: individuals, teams, and companies that stagnate slowly. So how can we create an environment that makes failing fast safe for the participants and their organizations? In this talk, we’ll cover key strategies for creating an environment that fosters rapid innovation in your organization, including: * Conducting effective and truly blameless project post-mortems * Creating an organizational culture of failing the right way * Measuring the impacts of positive failure – and failing to fail – on your organization’s bottom line Attendees will leave this presentation with concrete strategies to conquer their own fear of failure, and to help their organizations do the same.

1. Fear of Failing Fast
How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Success
Leslie Hawthorn
Red Hat
Cerner DevCon 2016

2. The Smithsonian

3. Apollo 13

5. No one from the
Apollo 13 crew
nor NASA
was known to
utter these
words.

6. Won't many fail?
The simple answer is
yes.
Jim Whitehurst
CEO, Red Hat
The Open Organization

8. So if we all know these things …
Why is it still so hard?

9. MAF: Micromanagement in Avoidance of Failure

10. Only Setting Goals You Know You Can Achieve

11. Avoiding discussions of failure entirely ...
Or only when exhorting to push forward to victory!

12. A Few Ways to
Do It Better
Failing the Right Way

13. v
Celebrate What You Learned by Failing

14. Fail Cake

15. Make Failure + What You Learned from It
An Integral Part of the HR Process

16. I liked ….
I wish ….
I wonder….

17. Measuring the Impact of Failing to Fail

18. Own Your Mistakes

19. Thank You!
Leslie Hawthorn
@lhawthorn
lhawthor@redhat.com

20. Photo Credits
● Smithsonian: https://www.flickr.com/photos/candescence/1144433183/
● Apollo 13 Capsule: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jopoe/3111916954/
● Failure is not an option tee: https://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk/product/6261/womens-blue-failure-is-not-an-option-nasa-t-shirt?tsID=7sr567g0bmkvqg1elev9nfj2l5
(considered fair use)
● Failure is a requirement: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjarrett/8063226488/
● Team with microscopes: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zeissmicro/8864950302/
● Stretching is good: https://www.flickr.com/photos/activefree/1175037582/
● Company meeting: https://www.flickr.com/photos/quazie/3910922714/
● Fireworks: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdmoar/14500663567/
● Totoro cake: https://www.flickr.com/photos/69302634@N02/14847787076
● Team with hands: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bibendum84/5483569272/
● Dandelion: https://www.flickr.com/photos/8047705@N02/5572197407/
● Water droplet: https://www.flickr.com/photos/walter-wilhelm/4074938798/
● Einstein quote: https://www.flickr.com/photos/celestinechua/10417682004/
● Coffee cup: https://www.flickr.com/photos/75001512@N00/8348676731/

21. The Legal Bits
● All images in this presentation are copyright their respective
owners and are used under a Creative Commons License or
considered fair use.
● The Open Organization by Jim Whitehurst is copyright Red Hat,
Inc.
● This presentation is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Please use, remix
and share widely!
– For license information, see
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/