Email
sinha.rk.dr@gmail.com
Fail fast... Fail safe... Succeed...
I have often heard supply chain leaders say that experimentation is important to make supply chain more resilient and antifragile. Some of these experiments will fail, which should be taken as learning.
While the intention is good, there are two specific guardrails we should put around such experiments.
The first guardrail refers to fast experimentation, which means that such experiments should yield quick results to indicate whether it is a success or a failure. If an experiment takes too long to yield results, we need to have tighter scrutiny of such experiments. This guardrail is commonly called ‘Fail Fast’.
The second guardrail refers to the inherent risk of such experiments. If an experiment fails, it should not have serious consequences for the business. It should preferably be carried out as a pilot in a small segment. If it fails, we should be able to revert to the earlier condition quickly. This principle is commonly called ‘Fail Safe’.
If an experiment intends to take us closer to the goal and has the two guardrails of ‘Fail Fast’ and ‘Fail Safe’, we should encourage it. Failure of such experiments can indeed be taken as a learning.