Innovation, experimentation ... and the right to be wrong!

At the ECHO partners’ conference last week, the question was raised if the right to make mistakes is a condition for innovation. Some suggested that ECHO should develop a webpage with the top 10 failures from which humanitarian workers learned the most. Indeed, every innovation turned out to have faced, but overcome, failures.

This simple observation illustrates an important lesson: in the innovation process, every failure can become an opportunity for learning. One could take this further and argue that failure is a necessary part (if not a valuable requirement) of innovation. Countless examples demonstrate that a readiness to accept some failures can lead to important lessons that lead to later successes. In fact, Kim Scriven of the Humanitairan Innovation Fund (HIF) said of their fund’s efforts, “we are pushing against a culture of risk aversion in the system where there is not a fantastic tradition of talking about failure.”

Of course the seemingly critical condition of “the right to be wrong” for innovation in the humanitarian sector, opens a field of reflection even controversial questions, for example about the relationship between donors and operators. If operators “need” to fail – or at least be able to fail – can donors responsibly accept or even expect this kind of risk? Is it morally and ethically acceptable to fund innovations that might fail and thus have direct human costs, e.g. failing to deliver or excluding certain groups? How can we enable and build on error while also being accountable?

In the private sector, and especially in the startup and technology field a widely held wisdom is that failing early and failing often is constructive. But can this “fail fast” mentality from the market competition based world apply where donated money for vulnerale people is at play? Or can we deduce from the private sector that a readiness to fail and accountability work hand in hand – or do private sector insights based on market competition not apply where money at the service to vulnerable populations is in play?