Annette Marksberry, Associate Vice President Innovation & Partnerships at University of Cincinnati

How do you determine whether or not an idea is worth pursuing? How do you scale IT projects for faster delivery?

“I have been fortunate to attend Eureka Ranch to complete their Black Belt training in Innovation. I have also trained with Experience Point in Toronto and am a certified Design Thinking Trainer. I think at the core of both of them, and what is fundamental to innovation and deciding what to pursue and how to scale IT, is the idea that failure is a good thing. At Eureka Ranch the saying is, “Fail fast, fail cheap.” The whole premise is that it is an iterative process; the failures that happen in prototyping and experimenting on a small, but fast scale, result in learnings. Those learnings are then brought back in and you pivot, you iterate, you just keep moving. It can lead to limitless possibilities because it is non-stop trying things. In this way, every idea is worthy, just not necessarily on a grand scale.

My background is in project management from 20 some years ago. Back then, you sat down for two to three days with your customer and got all their requirements and documented everything. Then you assembled a team and went away for six months, maybe a year, to build what they wanted. Of course, when you ask anyone what they want, they may say one thing today, but something can happen tomorrow to change that vision – it’s extremely organic. You might be 80% done with a project, when the customer would say that it was not what they asked for. That old model simply did not work.

This new paradigm of bringing every idea forward on a small scale, allows us to keep tweaking and delivering constantly and is a better way to scale and get faster. When we’re new, just out of school and in a first job, the one thing we’ve been told is – don’t fail. We’re scared of failing. Now we’re saying, “Embrace failure - go do it!” and it’s a totally new perspective. It’s hard for some of us who are 30 years in the workforce, but we are allowed to fail, so long as we learn from it.”