Harford talks specifically about how failure can be or cannot be a part of government. Working in the government his examples make sense of why the government is the way it is. However, there are still possibilities of experimentation (which is the first step towards failure and success) in various areas.

I am a big believer in experimentation and failure. However, it is a question of where we can experiment and how to minimise the risks of failure.

Ezra Klein: The basic argument of your book is that the only way to solve complex problems is to fail toward the correct solution. But one of the things you suggest is that this is particularly hard for governments to do. Why?

Tim Harford: Let’s think about the balance of risks in the market or the scientific method. In both cases, you could have 50 failures and one success and you’ll still come out ahead. The theory of relativity and Google and penicillin more than make up for all the failed experiments, theories and businesses. The same is true, of course, of biological evolution. The number of failures are orders of magnitude larger than the successes.

Now think about politics. Any politician knows they can have 50 policies going well and one failure the failure will dominate the next campaign. So the politician is just desperate to avoid provable failure. And they can do that either by never doing anything or by refusing to quantify and evaluate what should happen when they do do something, as that way no one can prove it went wrong.

via Tim Harford on failure – Ezra Klein – The Washington Post.

In my MBA as I was struggling to pick my electives I thought about Project Management. My thinking was that there was no way I would be a Manager soon or work in Strategy in the immigrant employee options climate in Australia and especially in Adelaide. I thought, what would be the next best option for this using all my skill sets and knowledge together? Project management suited me very well. I took up a introductory course in the Architecture/Construction school as the business school did not provide it. The MBA Director even scoffed at me.

That was my introduction to the wonderful framework and tools to get things done. My work in Assets & Facilities introduced me more to the practicalities of doing it and I was got a crash course in PRINCE2 framework due to my Director Jackie Bray. She provided the next level guidance from the MBA stuff. PRINCE2 provided a good framework and connection to strategy. That introduced me to MSP for Programme management. It all started to make sense to me.

I applied for a lot of Project Management jobs (even though a good friend suggested I was made for better things). Nothing worked out as I did not have the practice experience in their point of view in the exact fields that I applied in.

I got into my present job on a strategic/analysis/planning role and due to the challenges present there I was offerred to do a Project Manager role. And boy it has changed my entire life. The freedom to implement due to my current Director, Dana Shen and the ability to work on an important project brought out the best in me. I used learnt about Agile PM and used in that in the project. 

Overall it provided me a basis to apply business principles in the government. Finance, communication, strategy, operations, data analysis etc…all were needed to get the job done. And ofcourse, the kicker is leadership. This was a great learning experience that I will continue to use and has opened up many opportunities for me and I see many more possibilities for its use in the government/social sector area.

I will have to write another post on Agile but I think that has a lot of potential for success in these areas of work.