ICTworks by Inveneo

The word failure has always held a negative connotation. It makes sense. Failure represents effort, time, and money that did not produce results: a largely negative return on investment. No individual or group ever wants to feel that work has been wasted.

But why do we have to view failure as a waste of effort, time, and money? Failure brings to light some glaring faults in project planning and implementation, and taking advantage of these lessons can greatly improve the way future projects are managed.

This was the viewpoint taken by ICT4D professionals attending Fail Faire DC at the World Bank on October 13. The event looked to celebrate the failures in ICT implementation by development organizations as an indication of leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs.

Sponsored by the World Bank, Development Gateway, Inveneo, Jhpiego, and Facilitating Change, the Fail Faire brought together individuals in ICT4D to openly and lightheartedly discuss their failures and collaborate about ways to avoid similar setbacks in the future.

The night began with some networking in a World Bank lobby. With ICT4D being such a tight-knit community, this gave many a chance to catch up with old professional friends. Soon, everyone congregated in the conference room and Wayan Vota opened the celebration, reminding the audience that Steve Jobs, an ICT legend made the majority of his income at Pixar, a point in his life considered his greatest failure.

Presentations

1. Kristin Peterson of Inveneo began the presentations, discussing problems they encountered by making assumptions on existing infrastructure and end user knowledge before project implementation. They told about lizards and killer bees nesting in their hardware, learning soon after that honey conducts electricity.




2. Allison Stone from MoTech then took the floor, talking about her organization’s failure in implementing a mobile phone powered data collection system for nurses in Northern Ghana. The nurses did not want, and in some cases, did not know how to enter data into the phones, and a solution that did not incorporate technology turned out to be the best one.




3. Following this, Erin Mote, a lively and animated presenter, told the audience about USAID’s Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation program. In this case, USAID spent $40 million on a gaming program to teach students in Sub-Saharan Africa about the prevention of HIV. With the game servicing 2500 players on 15 computers, the project cost about $16,000 per player. Since this, USAID has spent more time in researching the end users, determining stakeholders, and developing proofs of concept.




4. Tessie San Martin from Plan International told the audience about their CRM systems: “It looks like a CRM system, but inside there’s just some tired birds chipping away.” She then went on to talk about trying to implement FrontlineSMS. They didn’t realize that a certain type of phone was needed, and all of the phones they purchased were the wrong ones. Because that team was too embarrassed to talk about its failure, another team bought the wrong phones again for a different FronlineSMS project. San Martin ended her presentation reminding us that, “The only failure that will kill you is the failure to learn.”




5. Andrea Bosch from Creative Associates talked about implementing a radio project in Bolivia. After leaving the radio programming documentation with users for a few days, they soon after found their documentation appearing in local markets. Apparently international property rights may be needed in ICT4D projects.




6. Next up, Samia Wilhem from the World Bank talked about their recent admittance of a 70% failure rate in ICT projects. A lack consistent ICT expenditure tracking outside of the ICT department, along with departments working in silos, often led to project failures. She pointed out that according to Richard Heeks, all major ICT4D projects represent 35% total failure, 50% partial failure, and 15% success.




7. After admitting failure to remember his wedding anniversary, Sean Dewitt told the audience about an extremely successful village phone program implemented by the Grameen Foundation. Jokingly, Dewitt reported, “So what do you do when you have a program model that is working really well? You abandon it!” Grameen split their team in two, one dealing with innovation and the other dealing with ethnographic research and project replication. It turned out that failure resulted from not integrating the human network with the development team.




8. Dr. Harshad Sanghvi of Jhpiego discussed brain drain, where skilled professionals emigrate away from developing regions in search of better living conditions. He makes the point that, by viewing human resources as a commodity, there is no brain drain. “In Kenya we drink the best coffee in the world and then send it to you. I’ve never heard of a coffee drain.” He then warned against solving pre-determined problems instead of searching for the root cause of a problem.




9. Following this, Jacobo Quintanilla from Internews advised the audience to be realistic, do their homework, interact with end users, and assess when implementing ICT4D projects. He warned, “Brothers and sisters, emergencies are not the best time to test your new technology,” and suggested to invest in preparedness for emergencies. He pushed the point that technology is not always the best solution, and new technologies are not always appropriate.




10. Gerard Pohl from Development Gateway presented “100 Million IT Failures per Month,” telling how just last week an unrecognizable pop-up from an anti-virus scammer led to a blue screen of death. He pointed out how internal IT problems add up and cause setbacks in day-to-day functioning.




11. Finally, Brian Forde presented on how Llamadas Helada’s biggest perceived success was in fact its biggest commercial failure. Even though their project of expanding low-cost phone access across Nicaragua using bicycle-based phones generated a great deal of media attention, it did not anticipate all of the user wants and needs. He warned against replicating his pedal-powered failure by attempting to use “holy water to wash away business model sins”. Projects always need customer demand first.

At the end of the night an XO laptop was presented to Erin Mote from USAID for best ICT4D failure. All in all, the night maintained a light-hearted atmosphere with a lot of laughs while creating an atmosphere of acceptance in failing.

Fail Faire DC 2011 is a celebration of failure as a mark of innovation and risk-taking. We will have great speakers with fun, fast, Ignite-style presentations of their professional failures. Audience participation is not only encouraged, it is mandatory! We are all peers and none of us is perfect. Expect much laughter as we navel-gaze at where we have all gone wrong in ICT and international development.

Yet we will LEARN from failure. Failure is no reason to be ashamed. Failure shows leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs. There is great value in examining our mistakes as we go beyond the easy and the simple. So while we encourage irreverence and humor, we will be improving our profession too.

Fail Faire DC 2011 will happen on October 13th at the World Bank. The event is sold out already (in 5 hours!) and there is only one way in now - present.

Fail Faire DC 2011 is brought to you by theWorld Bank, Development Gateway, Inveneo, and Jhpiego.

Agenda:

• 6:00pm: Welcome and drinks
• 6:30pm: #FAIL-Slam
• 7:30pm: Open Discussion
• 8:00pm: Mingling, learning, networking, more drinks

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Featured Speakers (so far)

• Dr. Tessie San Martin, CEO, Plan International USA
• Ian Schuler, Internet Freedom Programs, U.S. Department of State
• Erin Mote, Chief of Party, USAID Global Broadband and Innovations Alliance
• Andrea Bosch, ICT Advisor and Chief of Party, TILO Egypt, Creative Associates
• Dr. Harshad Sanghvi, Vice President of Innovations & Medical Director, Jhpiego
• Kristin Peterson, CEO & Co-founder, Inveneo
• The World Bank on their 70% ICT4D failure rate
• Grameen Foundation
• Development Gateway
• You? Apply today!

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We're sold out already so sign up to get alerts and updates about this and future Fail Faire DC events.

While we often focus on highlighting successes in our field, it’s no secret that many projects just don’t work – some don’t scale, some aren’t sustainable, some can’t get around bureaucratic hoops, and many fail due to completely unanticipated barriers.

At FAILfaire we want to recognize the failures: the pilots that never got anywhere, the applications that are not delivering, the projects that are not having any measurable impact on the lives of people, and the cultural or technical problems that arise.

FailFare Info
New York City
April 14th, 2010
5:00-7:30 pm
RSVP

This event may have been inspired by our Failday Twitter Chat, which wasn't a failure

While many practitioners and pundits in the ICT4D community agree that the field has had more than its share of failure - with some even claiming an unbroken string of failures - little work has gone into understanding why these failures happened, and even less work sharing failure with others.

ICTworks attempted to change the nature of the community's discussion of failures last Friday with "Fail Day", the second edition of the now-monthly #ICT4D Twitter Chat.

By all measures, the event was a success, with nearly thirty participants -- including researchers, practitioners, and interested people from industry and government -- not to mention an even larger audience of observers. The event's guiding questions were simple: What are the major types of failure in the ICT4D field, why are we faced with these patterns, and what can be done to change the course?

Unsurprisingly, at the end of 90 minutes, there were arguably more new questions than answers. (A full transcript of the event is available.) However, a few important themes arose:

1. Improper or missing understanding of users.

Technologists, like all people, have a tendency to dream big. As a result, systems are often over-engineered in the minds of the designer, without taking the time to base the design on real data points from potential users (or even from other projects). Designed in a vacuum, these projects are nearly guaranteed to fail -- users in the developing world often end up finding very little in common with an application developer in the United States (for example).

The human-computer interaction field is partly to blame for this pattern, as we haven't done a good job providing low-cost, meaningful ways to better understand users in the global south. We certainly haven't promoted use of simple techniques such as use of personas, interviews, and surveys in the early phases of ICT4D projects. Some of us, including me, are working to change this, but it will not be an overnight process.

2. Failure to focus on real problems and needs.

A failure to understand real needs is somewhat related to misunderstanding of users. After all, the better technologists are at understanding users, the better they can understand their needs. At OpenMRS, we have a mantra that "care will lead the way". This means that every bit of functionality can be traced to actual, real-life needs of the clinics and health care professionals we serve.

Unfortunately, this type of understanding can only be achieved by spending time first-hand in the environment where an ICT4D solution will be used, or, if that's not possible, by involving people from that environment directly in the design process. Eliminating time spent on "imagined" problems not only makes the technology development process faster, it also increases the likelihood the product will be well-received.

3. Expectation gap between implementers and donors.

Building on the previous two points, the chat's participants made it clear that implementers don't always do a good job of educating donors and other stakeholders about the realities "on the ground". (Perhaps this is because these "doers" don't fully understand them, themselves!) This misunderstanding inevitably leads to faulty expectations not only of the project, but also the processes of designing and implementing. Technologists must become better at "speaking donor", and also must help the donors learn a little about how to "speak tech".

This communication gap has plagued the informatics world in the global north since its beginnings, so it's not surprising to see it at play in the global south in international development projects. However, I believe the remedy may be the same in both situations - increased cross-training of people with solid technical backgrounds in concepts like interpersonal communication, project management, monitoring and evaluation.

Summary

While failures -- particularly in ICT4D -- will never be eliminated, focusing on these factors earlier in projects can help reduce of the impact of these failures, and help us "fail early and often", iteratively improving project implementations instead of failing late in the game, wasting more donor funds and invaluable time.

What do you think? Do you agree with these ideas? Were some overlooked? Voice your opinion in the comments.

Other FailDay Chat Synopsis

• ICT4D: Past mistakes, future wisdom
• Agile Development and Retrospectives: Learning from failure?

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