Americans view enterprise start-up attempts positively, even
when they are not successful. The French view them negatively.
Operational activities are predictable: when the Model is sound, successfully
Operating is within the reach of everyone who correctly applies
the Model.
On the other hand, uncertainty is quite normal in the Transformation.
It is impossible to always be right: even Steve Jobs met with
failure with Lisa or with Next.
Wanting to apply the principle of precaution, seeking to
implement heavy methodologies to avoid mistakes, setting up
bureaucratic principles of governance,... can only stifle
creativity. In practice, the better the quality of teams, the
less procedures they need.
On the other hand, it is important to look at the reality in front of us and reject the "it will work soon" syndrome when it become repetitive: we have to have the courage to give up on an initiative even if it represents a lot of investment. Nothing is worse than hearing: "as we have already spent a lot of money, we can't give up"; what is lost, is lost!
Do not discourage Transformers who have suffered failure. A
good method is to ask them to analyze the reasons for this
failure, then identify the measures needed to avoid making the
same mistakes twice. This analysis generally gives them the
courage to restart a difficult project.
To limit the consequences of possible failures, we can use
approaches that enable us to test out ideas at less cost:
The story of George the Baker is made available under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution - NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.