CARE Failing Forward

Mark Malhotra from CARE’s Innovation team talks about the process of designing digital solutions, and the danger of trusting experts when it seems like they aren’t delivering what you need. Human centered design, frequent check ins, and setting clear expectations with consultants all feature as tips to make your next digital experience easier. Tip: just because someone else in an expert, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

Bob Rabatsky from Fintrac discusses his experiences as the Chief of Party for Feed the Future’s Partnering For Innovation, and what it teaches us about working with the private sector and market based solutions. Re-setting application processes to prioritize qualified local businesses, focusing on setting good milestones, and overcoming resistance to private sector solutions are some of his key takeaways.

Emily Janoch from CARE's Impact and Learning team talks about all the wrong ways she has tried to do learning agendas, why she kept repeating the same mistakes, and the counterintuitive solution that works for her.

Everett Harper from CARE's board talks about the role of the leader in learning from failure, taking action to correct problems, and creating psychological safety. Some tools he refers to in creating safe spaces to learn from failure are:

The Pre-Mortem: figuring out failures in advance, then building in mitigating actions before starting the project

Retros: short for retrospectives, a repeated process for projects, teams, initiatives or companies, to open up a blameless, psychologically safe environment for team members to learn, improve and mitigate future risks. For leaders, it is an opportunity to access information and knowledge from people closest to the customer / beneficiary.

Customer Development: articles from Steve Blank, Book by Cindy Alvarez , interview by Cindy (I love her work), 10 Things I've Learned about CD, and a basic "What is CD"

Hiba Tibi from Palestine talks about her favorite quote: "Fear of failure is the only thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve." Even in crisis and fragile settings, we must programs that create space for women's empowerment and will be economically viable in the long term. We can't let the changing environment prevent us from focusing on equality that will last. Check out the recent paper on how to do that with Women's Economic Empowerment programs, and the thinking on how to approach the Humanitarian and Development nexus for long term change.

Susan Davis of Improve International talks about how we can incentivize talking about failure so we can make new mistakes rather than continuing to make the old ones. She also talks about how we can resolve problems as we find them in the Guidelines for Resolving Problems with Water Systems. Some tools she suggests are the Nakuru accord, pre-mortems, and innovative financing mechanisms—what she calls “Mistake Money”. What's the key? Getting communities involved in the conversation.

Juan Echanove talks about how we fail at workshops because we have come to expect that most of them will be bad. It's not just a problem for people in the room, these low standards for workshops ultimately cost us in terms of program design, productivity, and local ownership.

"It's all about being slapped in the face by others" says Sofia Sprechmann--CARE International's Program Director--about how CARE misfired on its first effort into working with social movements in Latin America, and how we had to focus on listening and building trust.

Michelle Nunn discusses how CARE's FY18 budget missed the balance between audacious goals and operational excellence. She ends with a call to all staff to err on the side of candor and speak truth to power.

In a two year period, more than 600 CARE projects closed without ever reporting impact data. Sofia Sprechmann, CARE International's Program Director, talks about why we've been failing to report all of our impact, and what we're doing to fix it. Two tools she references are the resources on measuring the impact of advocacy and CARE's unique Impact Map.

In a moment of transformation and budget crisis, a consultant's plan from completely failed to move the needle. Instead, CARE Sri Lanka's determination and ingenuity built a whole new way of doing business. They call it Chrysalis.

Gideon Cohen from Southern Africa talks about how we need to ask critical questions and give people the space to check in when things aren't working. How do we overturn power dynamics to get more honest feedback and improve our work?

Laurie Lee discusses what he learned from one of his early experiences responding to cases of sexual abuse, and how we need to balance tensions between power, reporting, privacy, and cultural contexts. In the end, the answer is simple: Put the survivor first.

Juan Echanove, the Senior Director of Food and Nutrition Security at CARE talks about how we can do a better job designing a portfolio of projects that use a systems thinking approach instead of creating a host of standalone projects that don't build on each other.

CARE International interview on how to learn from failure--what worked and what didn't in Ebola response, and what that teaches us about taking calculated risks.