Design Smart Mistakes and Misunderstanding Others

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22071
• Published date: 01 July 2015
• Date: 01 July 2015

99

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22071

Design Smart Mistakes and

Misunderstanding Others

David M. Cannon and Stephen R. Goldberg

BOOKS REVIEWED:

Sastry, Anjali, and Kara Penn,

2014, Fail Better: Design Smart

Mistakes and Succeed Sooner.

(Boston, MA: Harvard Business

Review Press)

Epley, Nicholas, 2015, Mindwise:

Why We Misunderstand What

Others Think, Believe, Feel, and

Want (New York, NY: Vintage

Books)

The first book selected for

review, Fail Better, provides

guidance on how good manag-

ers can learn from and exploit

failure. The second book,

Mindwise, suggests ways to

better understand the minds

of others as well as our own

to improve business as well as

social relationships.

FAIL BETTER

Fail Better is about how

smart managers plan for and

exploit their failures. However,

notwithstanding the general-

ity of context suggested by

the title, this is clearly a book

about the authors’ specific

method and guidance for the

planning and execution of proj-

ects. Anjali Sastry and Kara

Penn show how the uncertainty

inherent in large projects can

be addressed by breaking the

projects into smaller chunks for

which “failure is affordable.”

They contend that introspec-

tive reflection on the lessons

learned from small failures

reduces the potential for failure

of the overall project.

Fail Better consists of

10 chapters organized into

3 parts. In Part I, the authors

discuss why failures should be

embraced rather than avoided

and outlines their Fail Bet-

ter method. They discuss why

failure is inevitable, and that

failure can be planned for and

exploited. For example, they

contend that uncertainty is

inherent in projects and that for

complex projects, it is impos-

sible to anticipate and plan in

detail for every contingency.

Their Fail Better method

emphasizes “learning by doing”

using failures as a feedback

mechanism to drive the proj-

ect toward its objectives. The

project team plans activities in

small chunks for which failure

is affordable and then act on

the plan. Based on an evalua-

tion of success and a reflection

on failure, the project team

decides on how to embed the

lessons learned. This process is

performed iteratively until the

project is complete.

Part II provides detailed,

step‐by‐step guidance on how

the Fail Better method may

be applied to a project. In

Chapter 4, the longest chapter

in the book, Sastry and Penn

place a special emphasis on

the project launch, emphasiz-

ing three concepts: linking

actions to outcomes, marshal-

ling resources, and building

teams. The next chapter dis-

cusses the iteration required

by the authors’ method and

advises project teams to incor-

porate some experimentation

in project actions to resolve

uncertainties. The use of after

action reviews, a technique bor-

rowed from the military that

involves formal evaluation of

military missions for the les-

sons learned is recommended

for use in projects. Chapter 6

describes how project teams