Learning from our f-ups

F is for Failure (and that’s good enough for us)

• Fail Fest
• Lean towards human-made errors versus bugs in the system
  • Human engineering seems a little bit easier sometimes
• Example: training opportunity, lack of automation can lead to manual error(s), chance to build trust with others (more human conversation vs. adversarial)
  • How reliable are our systems?
    • Outdated systems -> stresses systems
  • Language can be a barrier to prevent fuckups
    • Reviewing language to clean up the methodology
    • People may feel attacked based on how communication about failure is established
  • We want to achieve the same goal so how do we evaluate the mistakes in a more approachable way?
• The culture of shame
  • Example: finger pointing can’t fly in certain settings
  • Evaluating the actions versus assigning value to the person
• First inclination is to protect the team
• “Bad” entity: system that created that behavior
• Look at Type I vs. Type II errors
  • Type I: things are permanently changed
  • Type II: recoverable but anomalous situation
  • Have to handle them differently
    • It’s okay to make the same error once, it’s not “okay” to make the same error twice
  • Environments of psychological safety to prove information
    • Things that people are feeling vulnerable about are not being discussed
  • Blameless retrospectives: come to the table to review the project
    • What are the facts of the situation?
    • If you can’t pull together that facts of the situation, you can’t correct them
    • The beginning of the process has facts -> want to understand what happened to get a record -> start to not point fingers
• Being open to recognize mistakes makes it comfortable for everyone else
• End users: how do the end users engage in the screw up of the implementation?
  • Example: frontline people may lack of proper tools or information
  • Not in the rooms to provide feedback
    • Doesn’t adhere to the model of what can be heard -> no sense of connection / don’t feel the end result
• Invite customers into retros
  • Retrospective defined: have the meeting where you analyze the problem
    • Having the customer in the room can help identify the problem
    • Synonyms: Safety event, hot-wash, reflection session, post mortem
• Not leaving any communication unturned
  • Providing the right information so that people can be prepared
  • Crisis communications: 1 sentence to warm up the room in all situations
    • Someone in charge, they’re an influence, power, authority to reduce anxiety
    • Come up with a list during the conversation -> all 4 communications styles hit -> people can see themselves (Humanware, Tony Cooper)
• One-way or two-way street decision
  • Go down the road but if you don’t like it you can go back
  • Go down the road but you’re stuck
  • Be clear about what type of road/decision you’re going to be on to understand the stakes (example: risks of lawsuits)
• Stop, start, continue/keep but keep the exercise closed
  • When they see you can be trusted to not get pissed off
• People going around the policy
  • You don’t want to reprimand people too much
• Setting up conversations about trust and showing up with vulnerabilities
  • Timing (crisis moment)
  • How we can communicate the reasoning behind that to the stakeholders and not having the proper language to communicate why and how
  • Rebuilding what has been broken as a result of the event and its impact on the user base
  • Reestablishing trust -> building up high performance -> fixing the mistake
    • Leverage human connections we already have
    • What you know in those critical moments
    • Being really transparent about the cause, what your team is doing, what you need support on
• How do you create a culture of reflexivity?

Resources

• Blameless post-mortem
• Einstein matrix (what you know, what you don’t know, what you don’t know you don’t know)
• Personal practice of navigating your own personal failures (what do I want to work on, what do I need to let go)
• Personal accountability
• Rose, bud, thorn
• Opportunities for improvement