Being Wrong is Great!

Experimenting and learning are two of the foundational pillars of modern Agile and a mantra in so many Agile organizations. So why is truly embodying a culture where failing is not only accepted but encouraged so rare?

A lot is hidden in this challenge, but from experience and research, we know a great deal stems from the negative connotations of the words “failing” and “failure.” And with any connotation, we can change the way we think. By acknowledging patterns in our brains and embracing that there’s always more we do not know than what we do, we can turn our teams, departments, and companies into truly learning organisms.

Allow me to share with you the pay-off of embracing a culture where mistakes should happen, and we challenge everything we know in everything we do: getting it right more often and creating a faster value engine in the long run.

Meet Annemarie Wolfrat

Annemarie Wolfrat is the Agile lead of TOPdesk and a Ph.D. student at the Business and Management School of the Free University of Amsterdam on the topic of intelligent failure. She works with leaders, teams, and her Agile community to increase agility to enhance innovativeness and studies how to create an environment that does not only allow for intelligent failure but promotes experimentation and all its potential outcomes. In addition to that, Annemarie is a public speaker with recent appearances at SITS 2022 and 2023 in London, itSMF Finland, and the Scrum event in Amsterdam.