Stop Saying Fail Fast

Let’s stop saying fail fast and let’s start saying learn fast.

So what happens when you ask somebody: don't think about a pink elephant? What does that person think about: that pink elephant.

So when we go around and we say the catchy phrase of “fail fast” what is everyone thinking about - failing.

We don't want them to think about failing, we want them to think about getting through the trials quickly. Let's change that to ‘learn fast’ because when we ask them to learn fast what do they think about - learning.

So when you do your trial-and-error they will be learning.

The other thing about failure is that most people are averse to failure. They have been taught after years and years and years of programming not to fail.

Teachers, parents, society, bosses, friends, family, the list goes on of all the people who say failing is bad. Don't fail, don't get that F on that math test, failing is bad, don't fail your literature exam. All of those years of programming have made the word failure scary.

When somebody is thinking of failure they're trying to run away from it.

If we use ‘fail fast’ when we try to ask somebody to complete trial-and-error quickly, what we've actually done is gone into the subconscious, with all of that pre-programming, and told them that they're going to fail because that’s what they’re thinking of.

Yes we have good intentions that it is okay to fail fast and keep moving, but they're actually not going to do the work. Subconsciously they are afraid to fail and by being afraid to fail they're not going to get started in the first place.

If we switch it over to ‘learn fast’ most people want to learn, most people are excited to learn, and that will get them excited to get on to the trial-and-error part of the project.