Sunday, August 11, 2013

Admitting Failure

Two brilliant papers on failure (via here)

Learning from failure: lessons for the sanitation sector - Abstract:

This paper explores the idea of learning from failure in the sanitation sector. The recent trend of ‘admitting failure’ in aid and development forces sanitation practitioners, researchers and policy- makers to ask if we can and should address failure more openly in order to improve our work. The ideas in this paper developed from discussions at a workshop on ‘learning from failure’ convened by the UK Sanitation Community of Practice (SanCoP) designed to kickstart this debate.

Failure Report - Abstract:

For some, admitting failure can be nearly impossible, never mind learning from it. If an international development organiza- tion rescues children from poverty or executes rescue missions from natural disasters—tsunamis, hurricanes and more—it can be difficult to reveal how and why things did not go as planned.
In some quarters, there is such cynicism about the efficacy of development aid that conceding defeat, even for an instant, is inconceivable. The competition to secure funding has also created a palpable reti- cence to disclose mistakes and failures. Yet, try as we might to eliminate failure from the natural process of achieving any goal, we instinctively seem to know that learning from it has a transformative, irreplaceable, propellant power.

The gift of failure is a riddle. Like the number zero it can be both the void and the start of infinite possibility. So how do we multiply something by zero and increase its value? How exactly does a setback become an aid? As it turns out, there is a way.



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