3 Ways to Plan for Failure Successfully
Why do our attempts to solve problems often fail? What if we created a new approach to move forward after our initial ideas fail? Here are three ways businesses can plan for failure.
Failure is an important part of any plan.
One of the main flaws of business planning is assuming that the plan will succeed. When businesses take this view, they are not accounting for the multitude of risks and unpredictable situations that can bring the whole thing crashing down (take the current COVID-19 pandemic for example).
Planning for failure does not mean you are planning to fail. The end goal is always success. That being said, the road to success is riddled with failed concepts and ideas. Preparing for and mitigating those setbacks is what increases the likelihood of success. Here are three ways businesses can plan for failure.
——
Find a backup plan.
Author and Entrepreneur Luni Libes has devised a useful exercise for finding your backup plan. Here’s an overview:
Map out your business by listing your key partners, activities, resources, cost structure, value propositions, customers, channels, and revenue streams.
Imagine your business completely failing in key aspects by crossing off whatever you wrote in a few different categories. For example, draw a big X through “revenue streams” and “key partners” and then re-imagine your business by writing something different in both of those fields.
This simple exercise can help you create a viable backup plan and may even reveal a business model that is better than the original!
Dodge the bullets.
Financial Analyst David Worrell notes that the point of planning for failure is not simply identifying threats, but also learning how to avoid them and adapt to them. He uses the following example: “If an earthquake would disrupt your Internet-based servers, you had better look at hosting in multiple cities sooner rather than later.” If your business model depends on one supplier or source, you’ll need to identify secondary and even tertiary sources to remain viable when the first one falls through.
Maintain plan consistency.
While it can be tempting to reinvent yourself after failure, your backup plan should not be a retreat, but instead a “business pivot.” Part of planning for failure is learning from your past mistakes and applying those lessons to what you’ve already accomplished.
If you’ve been frustrated with implementing solutions that aren’t actually solving problems, perhaps a fresh approach will allow you to improve both you and your team’s effectiveness. Bridge Innovate is offering a unique opportunity to hear from an expert in the field.
Hear a recorded webinar from Mitch Weisburgh in exploring complex domains and how our attempts to solving problems fail, at least the first time. In this session Mitch will examine, What is a complex problem? How does it differ from other problems? How should you use experts? Why doesn't traditional planning doesn’t work? By the end of this event, you'll walk away with a new approach on how to succeed regardless.