I have told this story in interviews for years. Every time someone asks about the biggest mistake I've made and what I learned from it, I reach for the same one.
At a mid-sized financial institution, I spent months building a program. I read every book I could get my hands on. I did the research. I spent hours going over every detail. I called the author of one of those books. I wanted to learn from the most impressive people I could reach.
I thought I had built something miraculous. I knew it was something special for the team.
I rolled it out and it flopped. Hard.
If you build software, you may know a version of this one. The spec was right. The design was logical. The demo went well. Then real people touched it.
I wrote about that moment in Performance Is Personal, and the lesson fits in three short sentences. Brilliant system. Logical design. Complete failure the moment it touches actual humans.
I keep telling the story because that last sentence keeps turning out to be true.
Top comments (0)