Having a proper understanding of the project is the best starting point for dealing with failures. From the example of simulation #2 the reason behind the failure seemed to be a preparation procedure that did not match the materials. Why this was initially caused we do not know but understanding the materials used in the product allowed us to come up with a solution. While this will not work as directly in most cases it does provide a good starting off point for coming up with solutions.
The ability to deal with failures and learn from them is a necessity in one's professional career. In order to deal with failure one must find the root cause, evaluate any impacts the failure may have, and take corrective action. It is important when dealing with failure to understand what went wrong and any potential reason why it went wrong. Once the root of the failure is addressed, assessing the impact of the failure on the project timeline, budget, and resources is a must. This will help you to determine how to prioritize and allocate resources to mitigate the impact of the failure. Based on the analysis, develop and implement a plan of action to address the failure. Following these simple steps will help the team and project deal with the failure and prevent it from happening again. Of course, as stated before is most important to learn from the failure. Dr. Simon has us talk about our lessons learned at the end of each simulation. This serves as a reflection and helps improve our skills needed to succeed in the professional world.
The best way to deal with failures is to learn from the mistakes that occurred. For this week's stimulation, it involved some knowledge of biochemistry and how to best deal with hydrogels in interaction within the human body. If one simply knew about the root of hydrogels itself, which is water-based, then the problem would have been solved sooner than later. Generally, if one were to ask for advice in departments that know best how to handle the problem one is facing, then fewer occurrences of error will occur.
When dealing with failures in testing, each aspect needs to be taken note of, to see how many different ways the project could have gone wrong. For example, in this simulation the main issues lay within the storage and contents of the syringe. Once the main issues are noted then specifics can be examined. For storage, could temperature affect it? Could the syringe itself affect it? And for the contents of the syringe, are the materials a good combination together? Is one affecting the other negatively? Each possibility needs to be noted and then given priority from different levels like the most feasible to test in a short period of time, the least cost to the budget to retest, and which ones combination of changes would allow the team to see what actually is affecting it? A lot of thought needs to go into how to figure out what went wrong. The main steps are to note where the issues could lie, then cross check them with the requirements of the project and test the ones that match with requirements first and if the solution isn’t found, then the project manager is going to need to review the budget and gantt chart to investigate further.
As many have mentioned above it is important to find the origin of the failures. It is important to mention that each project is different and requires a different plan, scope, etc. With that being said the strategy to determine the root of the failure and how to decrease the amount of failures may vary. Just to refer the mini simulation that was given this week a lot of failures/risk that could occur were solved with simple communication amongst team members. Communication will be the first step to determine and solve any failure that has occured. The research/experiment team within the project team could testing all failures and etc. so that the test are complete by professionals in that field. Failures are not uncommon in a project and although this is not wanted provisions may occur and be the only route to provide the customer with a completed project in a decent amount of time.
