Appreciation of Failure

This learning resource is about appreciation of failure. Failure has often a negative connotation. Therefore learners try to avoid failure. In the context of problem-solving in complex dynamic systems many people are involved to contribute to the solution. If the team tries to cover a large Domain of possible solutions, the workload of testing possible solution is distributed among the team members. The failure rate is very hi if only a few appropriate solutions are among the domain of possible solutions.

Appreciation of failure convert the negatives annotation into a positive one. Failure this document well, so there are others do not have to repeat the testing of a possible solution, and the individuals understand, birthday Report over failure it Is necessary to cover systematically the domain of possible solutions. Well documented failure, which is accessible to the team members, and avoids repeating the same error all over again.

Learning Task

 * Fear of Failure: read the book chapter about fear failure and and explain, why this fear of failure is an obstacle for collaborative problem solving!
 * Learning Environment in Schools: Create a learning environment for schools, in which students can identify and learn about the appreciation of failure (including benefits and obstacles) ! Complex problems are associated with a large domain of test cases and only very few of the case lead to an acceptable solution. So if students fail testing one case, they should learn that this failure contributes to testing the large number of cases by a community. Students should learn about the requirement to document the failure transparent to others, so that
 * others do not repeat the test case and focus on other uncovered test cases or
 * learn from failure and improve the test case.


 * Small and Medium Business Entprises (SME): SMEs can be very flexible and innovative with a small budget in comparison to large companies. Successful ideas of SMEs are bought from large companies (e.g.
 * Waze Community Driven Navigation bought by Google,
 * Skype bought by Microsoft,
 * Facebook bought by Facebook,
 * GitHub - as backbone of OpenSource Development bought by MircoSoft 2018, the OpenSource repositories could be accessed by anyone from GitHub including Mircosoft and the private software repositories cannot be sold by Mircosoft, because it is the intellectual property of the repository owners.
 * Explain, what is the value of the SME (mentioned above), that justifies the price for buying the SME!
 * Approach the assessment from either a collaborative and competetive angle!
 * Describe the perspective from an individual SME (try and error) and from the community of SMEs with its diversity as an ecosystem of innovation that can be regarded as a Research and Development Unit where only the success stories of SMEs get paid.
 * Explain the concept of diversity (e.g. bio diversity) as Richness of possible Answers and Expertise. How is biodiversity helpful to answers challenges to a ecosystem change? How can SME diversity and the appreciation of failure can help to understand the value of a diverse network of SME?
 * Many SMEs fail with their business plan. Compare the costs for an own research and development unit of big companies with the costs for buying a SME for billion dollars. Link the concept to the appreciation of failure and the huge number of SMEs that invest money to explore a certain business idea. Do you think a reward system for well-documented failure makes sense for complex problems like climate change or issues related to the Sustainable Development Goals? What are the PROs and CONs of such a business idea that supports the appreciation of failure?


 * Swarm intelligence: explain similarities and differences between appreciation of failure and swarm intelligence.
 * Global Challenges: Analyse global challenges like Climate Change and the requirement to identify appropriate response of humanity. Small and medium-sized enterprises can be regarded as flexible innovative units that contribute to problem solving in complex dynamic systems. If a large group of SMEs cover different areas with testbeds, pilots, case studies, .... the contribute to collaborative problem solving. Due to the complexity of global challenges a huge number of SMEs will fail because the will identify a deadend after analysis of certain approach in a domain of possible answers/responses. Nevertheless a well-documented report of failure contributes to collaborative problem solving. Explain the role of appreciation of well-documented failure for SME and create a draft of an economic reward system the takes the contributions into account.
 * Failure analysis in health care systems: Failure occurs in all systems including the health care system with occasionally severe consequences for the patients . Explain obstacles for reporting failure in health care system and explain the need for failure analysis and failure management in health care systems for avoiding a certain type of failure in the future. Include public perception of failure  and trust in health care system in your consideration. Explain the role public appreciation of transparent failure management and a neutral point of view on failure and successes.
 * Failure and Success : Failure can be regarded as a subjective assessment of an outcome/result. Provide examples in which a failure of one group member is a success of other group members. This leads to the competive problem solving. Explain differences and analogies between competitive and collaborative approaches to failure! Consider also the role of motivation for contribution to the problem solving approach.
 * Failure and Predictive Models: Why do scientist combine failure analysis and predictive models ?