There’s an acronym we use to help promote learning when it comes to agility. That acronym is F.A.I.L. - First Attempt In Learning.
That's all it is. It's not good or bad. It’s not right or wrong. It's learning. The great thing about this way of thinking about failure is that it takes the pressure off. It's just learning! For example, we learn something about work done yesterday and if we’ll make our Sprint Goal during the Daily Scrum. When we initially planned, we may have thought things would play out in a certain way, but did they? Or maybe it's at the Sprint Review where we share results of an experiment we tried during this Sprint that did not yield the results we expected. It's just fast feedback; fast learning. We promote learning by sharing what was tried, our findings, the results and what we will try next.
Here's a phrase that can be used to deliver these results: “I don't like telling you this any more than you like hearing it, but what's the right thing to do?” This takes all the bad energy out. It is what it is. No judgement. We're learning that when teams focus on learning, they're more apt to try new things. When people hear they're learning - whether this result gave them something they expected or not - they get it.
We're a learning team. We're a learning organization. We're going to keep trying until we get it. For more information on our coaching services, please visit us at: http://collaborativeleadershipteam.com
