I’ve never been a fan of the whole “fail faster” idea. Yesterday I published a contratian view to the fail faster idea. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I too am not a fan of the “fail faster” philosophy. I am an old guy, but a young engineer. In the three years I have been with my present company I have heard “fail fast - succeed sooner” echoed from every office in the building. Prior to becoming a mechanical engineer I had never heard of and would never have conceived of such a concept. I am from the old school of thought where “if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right the first time”. Here we are encouraged to rush products to market without proper testing and then fix any problems that may arise later. They call this making progress. Using our customers to do the testing we as engineers should have done! In my opinion, progress is best made with sound ideas, working prototypes and regular design reviews.
I have been personally criticized for being slower in my work than the other engineers, and at the same time praised for having ideas that are always well thought out. Not one of the products I have designed (five of which have been patented) have ever needed to be re-tooled after being released into the market and continue to perform perfectly. I may have taken longer, but I did it right the first time. This cannot be said of my colleagues who’s dedication to “fail faster” has condemned their product designs to fail in the market place to such a high degree that our buyers are now turning away from us at a rate two for every three that signs up. (as of this mornings’ staff meeting).
In my experience when an engineer adopts the “fail fast “ philosophy it makes him or her lazy. This leads to errors in design that in turn leads to changes in tooling, which in turn leads to delays in production and ultimately results in high numbers of product returns, and eventually the failure of the company its self.
COMMENTS
BY M. Ryan Williams
ON September 7, 2013 07:00 AM
I’ve never been a fan of the whole “fail faster” idea. Yesterday I published a contratian view to the fail faster idea. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
http://mryanwilliams.com/2013/09/why-fail-faster-is-horrible-advice/
BY David
ON January 31, 2014 07:44 AM
I too am not a fan of the “fail faster” philosophy. I am an old guy, but a young engineer. In the three years I have been with my present company I have heard “fail fast - succeed sooner” echoed from every office in the building. Prior to becoming a mechanical engineer I had never heard of and would never have conceived of such a concept. I am from the old school of thought where “if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right the first time”. Here we are encouraged to rush products to market without proper testing and then fix any problems that may arise later. They call this making progress. Using our customers to do the testing we as engineers should have done! In my opinion, progress is best made with sound ideas, working prototypes and regular design reviews.
I have been personally criticized for being slower in my work than the other engineers, and at the same time praised for having ideas that are always well thought out. Not one of the products I have designed (five of which have been patented) have ever needed to be re-tooled after being released into the market and continue to perform perfectly. I may have taken longer, but I did it right the first time. This cannot be said of my colleagues who’s dedication to “fail faster” has condemned their product designs to fail in the market place to such a high degree that our buyers are now turning away from us at a rate two for every three that signs up. (as of this mornings’ staff meeting).
In my experience when an engineer adopts the “fail fast “ philosophy it makes him or her lazy. This leads to errors in design that in turn leads to changes in tooling, which in turn leads to delays in production and ultimately results in high numbers of product returns, and eventually the failure of the company its self.