James Stewart
March 1, 2016
https://backchannel.com/the-secret-to-moonshots-killing-our-projects-49b18dc7f2d6
This article, written by Astro Teller (Director at Alphabet’s R&D arm called “X”), is a piece about how projects relate to failure. He starts the piece with some qualifying statements and other background about X. Specifically, he explains how X is the branch of Alphabet that starts “moonshot” projects – or projects that have little chance to succeed, but can reap serious benefits. In his own words, he explains a moonshot where huge problems, breakthrough technology and radical solutions merge.
The central theme to the piece is failure. He writes about four projects in particular: an automated vertical farm, shipping using lightweight balloons, the first self-driving cars and a new approach to wind energy whereby giant kites fly high in the atmosphere to generate power. The important takeaway from all of these projects is that they all initially failed. He goes on to preach that he actually encourages failure within his organization because, he argues, there would be no other way to achieve success in the long run. The last project he talks about is something called “Project Loon” in which giant balloons navigate the sky to beam internet down to rural areas in the most remote parts of the world. Finally, he emphasizes that the key to a project’s success is all about shifting your perspective. He argues that ultimately, moonshots cannot exist when people simply try to out-innovate each other.
I would argue that this article is incredibly valuable to anyone in an MIS related field. It discusses a fundamental part of project management that is rarely talked about: failure. In class, we focus on the iterative process and how agile functions, but we don’t exactly talk about what happens when a project fails. This article was enlightening to me because I hadn’t really thought of failure as a positive thing. The author even emphasizes that his employees – who have amassed over 100 failed projects – “get applause from their peers. Hugs and high fives from their manager. They get promoted because of it”. This resonated with me and changed my perspective on the issue. I think everybody in a project manager position would benefit from this mindset and, paradoxically, project success rates would increase as a result.
Good article. I don't think they plan to fail, but the benefits of learning from failure is a boon to an innovative mindsight. Many companies that want to innovate will have these collaborative labs where people work on various project ideas to explore them, rather than to see which ones "win." I also think that start-ups that get selected to work on their projects with the incubator's resources have a leg up, and, as a result, may ultimately succeed, even if they don't get funding right away. Why? Because they got to collaborate with a bunch of start-ups that got to participate in the same program. Everyone learns.
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