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{{Short description|Business management concept}}
'''Fail fast''', also sometimes termed '''fail fast, fail often''' or '''fail cheap''', is a [[Social:Business administration|business management]] concept and theory of [[Social:Industrial and organizational psychology|organizational psychology]] that argues businesses should encourage employees to use a trial-and-error process to quickly determine and assess the long-term viability of a product or strategy and move on, cutting losses rather than continuing to invest in a doomed approach. It is an element of some organizations' [[Organization:Organizational culture|corporate culture]], particularly in the technology industry and in the United States' Silicon Valley.  

A key rationale is that a failure is discovered before release or [[Engineering:New product development|rollout]], to prevent larger losses incurred from a failed final product and the resulting loss of reputation and trust. 

The implied promise to employees is that the consequences of failure, if recognized quickly, would not negatively affect a person's position, job or career; a key component of a successful approach requires a corporate culture that not only tolerates but actively encourages and even celebrates failure that results in valuable learning for the organization. It has been criticized for lack of adherence to that implicit promise, for its risk of creating a culture of mediocrity, and for being overoptimistic about the learning benefits of failure. 

== Concept ==
The concept and theory that argues businesses should adopt an aggressive and agile trial-and-error process to quickly determine and assess the long-term viability of a product or strategy, recognize that something isn't going well, and make adjustments or move on to something else rather than investing years in a doomed approach.<ref name="McGrath-2011" /><ref name="DePrisco-2022">{{Cite web |last=DePrisco |first=Michael |date=12 January 2022 |title=Council Post: How To Transition From A 'Fail Fast' Mentality To A 'Learn Fast' Mindset |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/01/12/how-to-transition-from-a-fail-fast-mentality-to-a-learn-fast-mindset/ |access-date=2023-11-03 |website={{wipe|Forbes}} |language=en}}</ref>

The approach assumes an incremental project development process, with [[Iterative and incremental development|iterative]] checks to ensure the product or strategy will meet client, consumer or organizational needs before dedicating ongoing investment.<ref name="McGrath-2011" /><ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /><ref name="University of Queensland">{{Cite web |title=The calculated art of failing fast - Business School - University of Queensland |url=https://business.uq.edu.au/momentum/art-of-failing-fast |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=University of Queensland}}</ref>

The concept was addressed in academia as early as 1992 by Sim Sitkin of [[Organization:Duke University|Duke University]].<ref name="McGrath-2011" /> 

=== Rationale ===
A key rationale is that a failure is discovered before release or rollout, to prevent larger losses incurred from a failed final product and the loss of reputation and trust that might incur.<ref name="McGrath-2011">{{Cite web |last=McGrath |first=Rita |date=April 2011 |title=Failing by Design |url=https://hbr.org/2011/04/failing-by-design |website=Harvard Business Review}}</ref>

Further rationales include that a corporation encouraging such an approach will cut their losses by not continuing to invest time and money in a doomed concept, rather than continuing to because the people in charge of the project are afraid of the consequences of admitting an expensive failure, a tendency known as the [[Sunk cost|sunk cost effect]].<ref name="Lutkevich-2023">{{Cite web |last=Lutkevich |first=Ben |date=January 2023 |title=What is fail fast? - Definition from TechTarget |url=https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/fail-fast |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=Tech Target |language=en}}</ref><ref name="DePrisco-2022" /> In addition, a corporation using such an approach would benefit more quickly from the learnings from past failures, enhancing the likelihood of quicker success on future projects.<ref name="Lutkevich-2023" />

=== Implied promise to employees ===
The implied promise to employees is that the [[Organization:Organizational culture|corporate culture]] is one where failure is not just tolerated but actively encouraged and that a person's position, job or career would not be threatened by a failed project as long as the failure is recognized quickly.<ref name="McGrath-2011" /><ref name="DePrisco-2022" /><ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /> According to Ben Lutkevich, writing for TechTarget, to successfully use the approach organizations must "reframe failure as a positive. Failure should be seen as a necessary input for change and innovation".<ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /> [[Organization:Columbia Business School|Columbia University]] professor of business Rita McGrath, writing in 2011 in the ''Harvard Business Review'', recommended building "a culture that celebrates intelligent failure".<ref name="McGrath-2011" />

== Use ==
The concept has been widely employed as a metaphor in business, dating back to at least 2001.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Khanna |first1=Rajat |last2=Guler |first2=Isin |last3=Nerkar |first3=Atul |date=2016-04-01 |title=Fail Often, Fail Big, and Fail Fast? Learning from Small Failures and R&D Performance in the Pharmaceutical Industry |journal=Academy of Management Journal |language=en |volume=59 |issue=2 |pages=436–459 |doi=10.5465/amj.2013.1109 |issn=0001-4273}}</ref> It is widely used in the technology and [[Medicine:Pharmaceutical industry|pharmaceutical industries]].<ref name="DePrisco-2022" /><ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /> It became a [[Philosophy:Mantra|mantra]] and badge of honor within [[Finance:Startup company|startup]] culture and particularly within the technology industry and in the United States' Silicon Valley, where it is a common part of corporate culture. <ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /><ref name="Surowiecki-2014">{{Cite news |last=Surowiecki |first=James |date=2014-05-12 |title=Epic Fails of the Startup World |language=en-US |work=The New Yorker |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/epic-fails-of-the-startup-world |access-date=2023-11-03 |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

=== Examples ===
Carol Bartz discussed a concept she termed "fail-fast forward" in a 2001 speech at Stanford University, describing a system she had implemented at [[Company:Autodesk|Autodesk]] to "engineer a company to fail in certain missions, to be resilient to failure, and to respond to it by overcoming quickly".<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-01-13 |title=Upper-case and straight lace: What Carol Bartz might bring to Yahoo |url=https://betanews.com/2009/01/13/upper-case-and-straight-lace-what-carol-bartz-might-bring-to-yahoo/ |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=BetaNews |language=en}}</ref>

[[Company:Amazon|Amazon]]'s [[Biography:Jeff Bezos|Jeff Bezos]] wrote in a 2015 letter to shareholders that "failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment."<ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /> [[Chaos Monkey]] is a Netflix project which intentionally simulates or induces failure to test the ability to recover.<ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /> An early motto of Facebook was "Move fast and break things".<ref name="Lutkevich-2023" /> Japanese chemicals firm Kao, while considering a proposed entry into the manufacture of [[Floppy disk|floppy disks]], tested the question of whether consumers would accept disks branded to a company not known for technology products by purchasing floppy disks from another manufacturer and branding them as Kao disks, thereby inexpensively assessing the likelihood of failure.<ref name="McGrath-2011" /> Procter and Gamble's A. G. Lafley, in his book ''The Game-Changer'', includes a list, which McGrath characterizes as "even [a celebration]", of expensive product failures and company learnings from those failures during his tenure as [[Social:Chief executive officer|CEO]].<ref name="McGrath-2011" />

Non-business examples of the psychological concept exist and are explored in ''Fail Fast, Fail Often'', a self-help book by [[Organization:Stanford University|Stanford University]]'s John Krumholtz and Ryan Babineaux.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bigelow |first=Deborah |date=15 November 2013 |title=Fail Fast, Fail Often: How Losing Can Help You Win |url=https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/fail-fast-fail-often-how-losing-can-help-you-win |access-date=2023-11-03 |website=Library Journal}}</ref>

== Criticism ==
In addressing the concept's implied promise to employees, Michael DePrisco of the Project Management Institute in 2022 criticized the concept as a bromide, writing that while managers encouraged employees to be willing to fail, in practice the consequences of failure often were damaging to jobs or careers. He argued that a slightly altered approach, which he calls "Learn fast", can work if management follows through on the implied offered job and career security for failing but also learning from those failures.<ref name="DePrisco-2022" />

The concept has also been criticized, including by TechTarget and the University of Queensland business school, for its risk of encouraging {{linktext|mediocrity}}.<ref name="University of Queensland" /><ref name="Lutkevich-2023" />

According to ''New Yorker'', multiple studies of entrepreneurial success have shown that "the evidence suggests that past failure really just predicts future failure" and that the predicted learning benefits of failure might be over-optimistic.<ref name="Surowiecki-2014" />

== See also ==
{{columns-list|colwidth=18em|
* {{annotated link|Agile software development}}
* {{annotated link|Chaos engineering}}
* FailCon, a conference for startup founders to learn from and prepare for failure
* {{annotated link|Fail-fast system}}, a similarly-named related concept in software engineering
* {{annotated link|Finance:Museum of Failure}}
* {{annotated link|Organization:Organizational behavior}}
* {{annotated link|Organization:Organizational learning}}
* {{annotated link|Social:Three circles model}}
}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* {{Cite book |last=Bean |first=Randy |title=Fail fast, learn faster: lessons in data-driven leadership in an age of disruption, big data, and AI |date=2021 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-119-80623-3 |location=Hoboken, New Jersey|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/1256589451}}</ref>
[[Category:Psychological concepts]]
[[Category:Organizational theory]]

{{Sourceattribution|Fail fast (business)|1}}