Trying to Do It Right the First Time Isn't Always Best

Many workplaces are festooned with "slogan posters," and sometimes they do have a positive effect. But sometimes they're unhelpful — even destructive. One slogan that can be especially inappropriate in problem-solving organizations is "Do It Right the First Time." It has an equally inappropriate cousin: "If you don't have time to do it right, how will you get time to do it again?"

These slogans might make some sense in the operational context, where tasks are very repeatable. But problem-solving tasks are different. Problem solving, which occurs most often in the project context, entails doing something new here, in our organization, if not the world.

Here are three advantages of organizational cultures that grant permission to experiment — to "do it wrong" the first time.

Accelerated progress

We often learn more by doing it wrong than by doing right. A series of well-designed experiments that focus on specific learning goals can usually advance the project faster than consistently trying to implement deliverable solutions.

Normalized risk taking

When we require that every effort produce deliverable results, we create a culture that's averse to taking the kind of risks that are often necessary to complete projects successfully.

Cost savings

When we can accept that a particular implementation isn't "final," and won't ever be, we can take steps to limit our investment in that implementation. We can work on answering only the question at hand.

Even if We often learn more
by doing it wrong
than by doing rightyou decide that experimental approaches are sometimes justified, there are three traps awaiting many organizations.

Confusion between operations and projects

Leaders and managers accustomed to operationally oriented organizations often see exploratory failures as worthless indulgences, because they don't directly produce the desired result. Many with strictly operational experience must learn new ways when they manage problem-solving organizations.

Hidden problem-solving organizations

Problem solving organizations can be embedded within operationally oriented organizations. For instance, most IT organizations are responsible for information and computation operations. Managing them requires an operational orientation. But these same IT organizations also contain groups that develop new products and first-of-kind services. Managing these efforts requires a more experimental approach. And this is a problem for slogan posters, because everyone sees them, and some slogans aren't right for everybody.

Cultural inertia

Some organizations have a historically operational orientation, but now perform most of their work in the project context. In some cases, the old culture hasn't yet adapted to the new work.

Doing it right by first doing it wrong can give you personal advantages, too. A very small example: how much better would our work lives be if we gave ourselves permission to keep revising the email messages we write until we feel good about them? You can start today.  Top    Next Issue

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When we assess the costs of different options for solving a problem, we must take care not to commit a variety of errors in approach. These errors can lead to flawed decisions. One activity at risk for error is comparing the costs of two options. Available here and by RSS on January 27.

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