This might sound like a massively negative comment and one that sets me up as a pessimist; I am in fact quite a huge optimist, according to some of my friends an optimist beyond reality, with a pint that is always full :-D
I am however referring to design practice and principles and a theory I believe in of preparing to fail, but failing quickly and cheaply and learning from mistakes to help develop a greater product.
I always remember my first few weeks in high school and my first pottery class. My class-mates and I spent our first few weeks in the art room, sculpting our pots, plates and other ceramic artefacts, carefully adding patterns and colour, before excitedly loading our pottery into the kiln and leaving them to bake for a few days.
At the start of the next art lesson, following having our clay pots fired, our teacher began by lecturing us on the importance of not becoming attached to our art, and that to create truly wonderful art it was important not to become attached to a piece at any given stage. To further emphasis this to us, he then presented to us our beautiful pottery creations in the front of the class; before picking up a random three pieces he especially liked and began juggling with them!
The whole class watched on in shock and horror, especially the three pupils whose work was being juggled. By now it was apparent that he was well practised in his circus act and that the pots would most likely survive the performance... if that was he hadn’t blatantly dropped each pot, sending them to their doom on the hard art room floor, followed by screams from their rightful owners who had spent weeks preparing their masterpieces.
Of course what he was doing was backing up his theory of not getting attached to your art. I personally felt however, that it was an unfair and horrible act to demonstrate, especially to a group of 11 year olds!
20 years on, and yes although I don’t look that old I really am ;-) I am able to understand what he was doing, but still feel he did it incorrectly.
In design I stand by the theory of failing but failing quickly, in a way listening to the art teachers approach of not becoming attached to your art, but giving it structure and not destroying something that was in affect a finished piece of work.
Failing quickly.
So what exactly do I mean by preparing to fail?
What I mean, is prototype or sketch and eliminate lesser ideas or ideas that are less efficient, less sustainable, etc; allowing more time and focus to develop ideas that provide a positive solution to your problem.
Too often I see people present a finished CAD drawing for an idea that has hardly been explored. The producer has had an idea and instantly decided to spend days producing a 3D drawing before really considering all the factors connected to the product, (Jumping to a conclusion.)
Problems that could and most likely would occur when designing a product could have been resolved by simply making some quick engineering sketches or better still producing a simple model from materials as basic as cardboard and sticky tape to get a real feel of a products size and shape and how people interact around it.
Whilst designing my own personal twist on the lifering, (The lifering rocket), I spent weeks, NO! months sketching various mechanisms and shapes and watching people interact with quick prototypes I had produced. This without a doubt enabled me to design the best product I could to solve the problem. Without my pages and pages of failed ideas, and bin bags full of quick prototypes, I wouldn't have succeeded.
Another way to look at the phrase, be prepared to fail, or 'dont be scared of failing' may work better in this case, is to never eliminate the crazy ideas without really considering them.
Yes, a lot of crazy ideas will remain as crazy ideas, but as Henry Ford once said, "I'f I'd asked them what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse" He was saying that people didn't know that they wanted the mass produced and affordable motor car, but he had a vision and wanted to give them what they needed not what they thought they wanted.
Referring back to previous posts and Phil Mckinneys F.I.R.E and P.O acronym. This is where you can take all your ideas, no matter how crazy they may initially seem (Ideate) and (Rank) them, allowing you to logically decide on the best solution for your problem.
To conclude…
Prior to starting writing this thread, I was going to base the story on my recent first attempt at building a clay pizza oven and how I wasn’t going to get attached to my first attempt, and how after 3 weeks of perfect pizza’s My dog jumped on the oven to see over the fence and then put his foot through the clay and now I have to build another oven.
All my friends assumed I’d be gutted by having lost my prized pizza oven, but I’m not. If anything I was excited at the prospect of building a second oven, having learnt so much from building the first one, the second will be stronger, more efficient, more aesthetically pleasing, I could go on, but if you want to read about pizza, click here.
Don’t hide away from your crazy ideas, but ‘RANK’, sketch and prototype before you waste time and money discovering they should have stayed as an idea!
If you'd like to know more about F.I.R.E and P.O, then let them man himself tell you here Phil McKinneys fire and po theory...
