Fail Fast

"Vision without action is a daydream" - Japanese proverb.

Whatever it is you want to achieve - start a business, launch a product, spread an idea, create a movement, write a book, or just complete yet another task - the hardest and most important part is to start. We’ll find every reason we need, to justify waiting another hour, day, or week (even if it’s just "but I don’t waaaaaannaaa"). The best time to launch a product or announce an idea is before you’re comfortable doing it. As soon as you start doing something, the ball gets moving - then all you need to do is push it in the right direction, and get out of the way.

Which leads me to "the right direction" - how do we know, where the ball needs to go to? Problem is, we want everything to be perfect. Before we start a business, before we launch a product - before we do anything - we want to make sure, that we have every detail right. We get into a planning rabbit-hole - and, although I think planning is good, it can have disastrous consequences.

If we do enough planning, we might get every detail in place, and then launch the perfect product. The problem is that before we actually put the idea "out there," we are planning everything based on our own assumptions. And assumptions tend to be wrong. Assumptions are a powerful force. They make us think something is fact, when it’s only our opinion. They make us overlook things.

They make us believe some things go without saying, when in reality that’s rarely true. Assumptions are dangerous, if we’re not careful - but we all make them. The key to success is making all our assumptions explicit. And then challenging them. You need to be conscious of your assumptions, and you need to make them testable. That will enable you to verify those that are correct, and eliminate those that are wrong.

Coming out as soon as possible gives you feedback. And feedback gives you a way of testing assumptions. If what you assumed about a product was wrong, this feedback can save you lots of time and lots of resources. But testing should not stop at that - if you want to succeed, you need to test early, and you need to test often. You need to test every idea, every change, every action - only then will you know if what you’re doing is right.

Testing gives you data, which gives you metrics. But you need the right kind of metrics - actionable, not vanity . Vanity metrics help you feel good about yourself. Actionable metrics help you achieve a goal. I’ve recently heard on the news that banks in our country have successfully passed a stress test - that’s a vanity metric. You don’t learn anything from that. If done correctly, there is no possible way to pass a stress test - because the purpose of a stress test is to learn at what point the object of your test will fail. If it hasn’t failed, you haven’t done the test.

Testing early and testing often, will give you instant feedback. That will tell you where things are really going, what you really need to be doing. And that will help you take action - the correct kind. You need to identify what works and what doesn’t - and then concentrate on the former, and quit the later. You need to get in the habit of failing fast - as soon as you recognize that you’re going towards a dead end, change roads. Quit not because something is hard, but because it’s not working - and you will become much more successful because of that.

I really appreciate that you keep coming back to my site, it's loyal people like you that make what I do worth it. If you have any questions feel free to email me at Tony [at] BeginWorkingOnline [dot] com. If you like what you read, and find it helpful, make sure to share it with a friend - they'll love you for it! Remember, this blog is not about me, it's about you - so participate in the discussion, let me and the other readers know what you think and how you're doing.