Failure Is Not a Mistake: What NASA Can Teach Us About PLM Transformation

If you shoot for the moon…

Say it with me, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”. Okay, well, it’s more complicated than that.

Example 1: In 1998, excitement was bubbling over at NASA for the latest space mission: The Mars Climate Orbiter. It was launched to gather data on the Martian climate and atmosphere. Almost a year later when it finally made it to Mars, the very atmosphere it intended to study destroyed it. Why? Because some of the best engineers on the planet forgot to convert from Imperial to Metric.

Example 2: In 2013, NASA’s hopes were once again dashed when a gyroscope-like reaction wheel broke, meaning NASA couldn’t properly control it, four years into the Kepler Space Telescope’s mission as the first ever planet-finding expedition. However, the scientists moved forward from failure and re-designed how Kepler used the sunlight. They put the mission back on track AND nearly doubled the mission life from the original capability. The results were over half a million stars surveyed and new types of research to study objects within our solar system, exploded stars, and distant supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies (more here).

Mistake or Failure?

I was lucky enough to hear Amy Edmondson, renowned Organizational Behavior professor at Harvard Business School, speak at #ATD25 where she encouraged us NOT to avoid failure but, instead, change our thinking. I thought I misunderstood her credentials and heard “Harvard” instead of “Hogwarts” because she must be under a confusion spell. Then she shared these definitions:

• Mistake: an unintended deviation from existing knowledge, procedures, rules, or policies that can only happen in FAMILIAR territory. For the Mars Climate Orbiter, mistakes were made as they knew better.
• Failure: an interim outcome that deviates from a desired result in NEW territory. For Kepler, they tried to do something that’s never been done, did their best given what they knew, and turned lemons into interstellar lemonade when given the opportunity of adversity and learning. NASA adjusted and then launched forward again with Kepler.

She said, “in new territory, the only way to make progress is through trial and failure”. Mistakes are a problem and cost organizations dearly. “Failure is part of thriving” and the only way to truly innovate – the idea that you haven’t succeeded yet. NASA’s goal is to better understand our universe, a transformational paradigm shift.

Mistakes block transformation, (falling off the ladder while climbing up to the diving board).

Failures are temporary, (taking a few steps back to give the room for and momentum to take an amazing dive off the diving board).

What high-performing PLM programs do differently

Alright, theory sounds nice, and good for NASA. But what about my organization? How (WHY?!) do I convince them to fail?! Here’s my 5-step approach – and an answer to the “WHY?!”:

1. First, your overall program goal should not, in fact, be “failure”. Set your program objectives to achieve far-reaching improvements, like significant gains in engineering or manufacturing efficiency, cost savings, increased speed from idea to the sales floor, or consolidating global operations into a shared system and set of processes.
2. Then establish Adoption Metrics, measures that show behavioral progress towards the ends of your business goals. This allows you, when/if you “fail” (haven’t yet succeeded), to quickly identify where the breakdown in expectations is and thus where to apply mitigation effort.
3. For both your Adoption and traditional success metrics, set a tiered path to success (I like to call it “Minimum Viable Adoption”). No organization can hit their goal metrics at Go Live nor should they expect to for months afterward. Establish steps where the metrics should hit milestones on their way to full expected ROI, then manage leaders and end users so they understand their milestone expectations.
4. Work with leaders and end users to drive understanding of the ultimate success goal/ROI, the tiered approach to getting there, and the concept that thoughtful experimentation and applying what they learn in training leading to “failures” (not mistakes) are more than acceptable. Another favorite concept of Dr. Edmondson’s is Psychological Safety (PS). PS is not about being nice or lowering standards. PS is about rethinking excellence in a dynamic world by encouraging those impacted by change to try something new and speak about regarding ideas and concerns – and especially failures. This is more than culture; PS directly affects ROI by enabling proper failures and quicker evolutions to success.
5. Build your program team such that not everybody disappears after hypercare. You need a product owner and usually one or two other fulltime folks dedicated to continuous improvement. Meaning, you need people who continue to live-and-breathe ongoing training, keep an eye on system updates, and (among other things), most importantly, look at what can and should come next in your dynamic PLM roadmap. My favorite way to do this is to deploy a PLM Center of Excellence (COE).

You need steps 1-4 to enable the possibility of progress and growth. And you need step 5 to enable the actual progressing and growing, and ultimately the achievement of ROI. PLM, like many other modern transformational technology-based work, is an atrociously large thing to implement in its entirety in a big bang. Attempt it in well thought out phases and adapt as both end users and the organization learn from trying. Plus, the point of PLM (and why companies like PTC are constantly upgrading their PLM software) is to achieve something good, learn, and then do even better the next time. There is no final point in a PLM journey; a healthy, competitive company should always aim for the horizon – you get closer, but it moves too.

Using OCM to fail properly and accelerate ROI

I love Gartner’s definition of PLM as a “philosophy, process, and discipline supported by software”. That’s why ArcherGrey supports our clients’ PLM transformations from business case development to post-implementation support with behavioral Organizational Change Management (OCM).

By properly assessing the unique change needs, risks, and cultural attributes of both your organization and impacted stakeholders, you get ahead of and avoid the “mistakes” and figure out how to set up a safe environment for the right kind of “failure”. You can then develop a tailored change approach to address organizational risks and cultural anchors, fundamental and often hidden barriers to changing behaviors and mindsets necessary to reach future state and ROI. OCM sets everyone up to succeed but also able to fail on the way WITHOUT making a mistake.

Not sure if you have the right OCM to avoid mistakes and embrace failure (I mean success!)? Determine if you are approaching your PLM journey with OCM comprised of proper organizational readiness and stakeholder enablement. Feel free to use our thought leadership to see how prepared you are to accelerate your time to ROI:

• Take our OCM Maturity Assessment (a 2-minute survey with complimentary analysis provided by our OCM team)
• Read about modern takes on Training and Communication
• Understand the science behind why your people will resist beneficial change
• Personalize your PLM strategy based on your organization’s unique needs

Review more articles from ArcherGrey’s OCM Leader, Cameron Roth, and reach out if you need help failing (I mean succeeding!) in your PLM journey!