The 7 Principles of Failure for Project Managers

We are often caught off-guard by failure. We treat it as an unexpected outcome of our projects without realizing that we have often laid out the foundations for eventual failure well in advance. And yet, an enormous amount of literature celebrates failure as the most important stepping stone towards success, in business as well as generally in life. Sweden even created a museum to celebrate how Vasa, the most powerful warship in the Baltic, foundered in Stockholm harbour before the eyes of a large audience, scant minutes after setting sail for the first time.

The question then is, why not actively pursue failure? Why leave this in the hands of fate?

My personal and professional life have been heavily influenced by principle-based books such as Principles by Ray Dalio and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. In the footsteps of this excellent tradition, I wanted to highlight a similar set of principles for project managers to use in their daily pursuit of failure. By applying the principles below, failure can be achieved organically and certainly. While luck and exceptional performances can delay the process, time is and will always be failure’s greatest ally.

1. Don’t plan for the worst-case scenario

Your meeting with failure can be accelerated by leaving some fundamental questions unanswered. Remove from any roles of responsibility those that think in hypotheticals, the sceptics, the pessimists, anyone that has ever heard of Andy…