The positives of negative thinking
What went wrong? It’s a question often asked after a project has failed and usually provides few satisfactory answers. But what if, as Richard Lawler of the Dublin-based consultancy StartInnovating suggests, you ask that question before the project started?
Ask everyone involved in the project to assume it had gone disastrously wrong and explain why. You will probably compile a compelling list of concerns which participants might not, possibly because of company politics or lack of self-confidence, have shared. At best, you could confront these issues. And if the concerns are so serious as to call the project into question, at least the cost of failure will have fallen dramatically.
