FAILURES...some are better than others

Fast Company Design newsletter offers excellent insight to learning from failure, recognizing all failures are not as useful for innovation and learning.  The article plus comments are excellent; additional thoughts on failure and prototyping can be found here. Leaders of project-based work as well as operations leaders can learn from this categorization of failure:

Abject failure This is the really dark one. It marks you and you may not ever fully recover from it. People lose their lives, jobs, respect, or livelihoods. Examples: British Petroleum’s Gulf oil spill; mortgage-backed securities.

Structural failure It cuts -- deeply -- but it doesn’t permanently cripple your identity or enterprise. Examples: Apple iPhone 4’s antenna; Windows Vista.

Glorious failure Going out in a botched but beautiful blaze of glory -- catastrophic but exhilarating. Example: Jamaican bobsled team.

Common failure Everyday instances of screwing up that are not too difficult to recover from. The apology was invented for this category. Examples: oversleeping and missing a meeting at work; forgetting to pick up your kids from school; overcooking the tuna.

Version failure Small failures that lead to incremental but meaningful improvements over time. Examples: Linux operating system; evolution.

Predicted failure Failure as an essential part of a process that allows you to see what it is you really need to do more clearly because of the shortcomings. Example: the prototype -- only by creating imperfect early versions of it can you learn what’s necessary to refine it