Lessons Learned from Past Projects

‼️ I made these mistakes, and my water project failed. It was my first year on site as a young, eager engineer. I was supervising a rural water reticulation project in Esigodini . We were behind schedule and over budget. Pressure was high. Decisions had to be made , and I made the wrong ones. To cut costs, we started compromising on construction standards. At the time, it felt justifiable. But it wasn’t long before the system started failing. And it hurt. I had to watch a community's hope for clean water fade because of decisions I approved. Here’s where I went wrong: 1️⃣ Improper Bedding & Backfilling I allowed pipes to be laid directly on rocky ground with minimal bedding. No proper compaction. It looked like progress, but beneath the surface, it was a disaster in waiting. 2️⃣ No Thrust Blocks at Key Points On bends and critical junctions, we skipped thrust blocks to save time and concrete. When the pumps were activated, joints burst open like a balloon under pressure. I also overlooked proper jointing techniques and quality assurance checks. HDPE welds weren't inspected. Ductile iron pipes were joined in haste. No supervision. No second eyes. Just assumptions. (This is where you need an experienced foreman) 🎯 Lesson learned? Even the best designs fail without proper execution. And in Africa, where every drop of clean water matters, we can’t afford to get it wrong. Africa doesn’t need more pipes, it needs better pipe-laying practices. “It’s not always poor design that kills water projects , it’s poor execution. I learned that the hard way, so you don’t have to.”

I failed 5 times before I figured it out. Here’s every business I tried (and what each taught me)  2015 - Charity Platform ✅ Why I thought it would work: Charities needed fresh ways to raise money. ❌ Why it failed: Big charities move way too slow, red tape killed momentum. 💡 Lesson learned: Work with smaller, agile clients who can act fast. 2016 - Affiliate Site for Dentists ✅ Why I thought it would work: Dentists pay big for leads = $$$ opportunity. ❌ Why it failed: Having a product isn’t enough, I had zero marketing skills. 💡 Lesson learned: Affiliate success = mastering marketing & performance media. 2017 - Talent Agency ✅ Why I thought it would work: I crushed it in influencer marketing—this felt like the next step. ❌ Why it failed: Managing ego-driven talent is a nightmare. 💡 Lesson learned: Winning in one space doesn’t mean you’ll win in the next. New market = new skillset. 2018 - Doodlar (Teespring Competitor) ✅ Why I thought it would work: Teespring made £50M—I wanted a piece of the pie. ❌ Why it failed: I went too broad instead of focusing on a niche. 💡 Lesson learned: Start with a laser focus (e.g., anime fans) before scaling up. 2019 - PetHeart ✅ Why I thought it would work: Pet owners are obsessed with their pets. ❌ Why it failed: I wasn’t a pet owner, I didn’t understand my customers. 💡 Lesson learned: Deep customer insight is non-negotiable for product success. What did I do differently? I embraced failure, learned from it, and applied those lessons to my next big idea. Your failures don’t define you how you learn from them does. So, if you’re struggling, don’t give up. The next big success might be just around the corner.

Embracing Failure: Lessons Learned from a Recent Experience LinkedIn is often a platform where we highlight our successes, but I believe it's equally important to share our failures and learning experiences. Allow me to take you through a recent setback and the valuable lessons it offered. Last November, our team received an invitation to respond to an RFI alongside 10 other global negotiation training companies. This opportunity came from one of the largest corporations in their industry headquartered in Europe. They sought a comprehensive global training program for 400 procurement professionals, a task well within our expertise. The RFI was extensive, leading us to submit a detailed 38-page proposal. We learned that we were shortlisted as one of the three potential suppliers. The client proposed an innovative agile procurement process, including a live workshop at their HQ. However, challenges arose from the outset. Negotiating cost compensation for our team's travel proved difficult, and scheduling the event became nearly impossible. Ultimately, the workshop shifted to a virtual format on an unfamiliar platform. Despite meticulous preparation, the workshop itself felt more like an interrogation than a collaborative session. Feedback was unexpected and critical, leaving us feeling disheartened and perplexed. During the workshop, frustration mounted within our team as we grappled with unexpected challenges and criticism. At one point, a colleague couldn't contain their exasperation and exclaimed, "If only you had spent all this time and preparation running a pilot workshop with each supplier, all of us would have saved so much time." This outburst encapsulated the frustration we felt at that moment. It underscored the hindsight realization that investing time in pilot workshops could have provided invaluable insights early on, potentially streamlining the process and avoiding the pitfalls we encountered. Following the workshop, we were informed that the client had decided to proceed without us. Their reasons? They perceived our approach as overly academic and doubted our ability to scale the workshop effectively. While disappointing, this experience provided some valuable insights: 1. Value Your Time: Don't invest significant hours in RFIs and engagements without ensuring appropriate compensation. 2. Know Your Medium: Creative workshops may not translate effectively to online formats; consider the limitations of virtual environments. 3. Clarify Expectations: Ensure clients have a clear understanding of their objectives and are prepared for the engagement. 4. As an advisor i often sit on the other side of the table and always recommend the buyer offer the supplier compensation for more time consuming proposals. Sharing this experience isn't merely about airing frustration; it's about embracing the opportunity to learn and grow. By reflecting on setbacks, we can refine our approach and ultimately achieve greater success.

After multiple business and digital transformation journeys, one pattern keeps repeating. Technology rarely fails. Plans rarely fail. What fails is how change is absorbed once the program team steps away. Here are six lessons experience teaches—often the hard way: 1) Technology moves faster than people Systems can be implemented quickly. Ways of working don’t change at the same pace. I’ve seen teams technically enabled, yet still default to old habits because confidence and trust take time to build. 2) Progress comes from focus, not force The moments that moved the needle were never about pushing harder. They came from deliberately narrowing scope—fewer initiatives, clearer priorities, and protected execution bandwidth. 3) Decisions delayed cost more than decisions wrong Waiting for perfect alignment often created more cost than making a call and adjusting later. Momentum consistently favored teams that decided early and corrected fast. 4) Simplifying work creates more impact than adding tools The biggest gains didn’t come from new platforms alone, but from removing steps, handoffs, and unnecessary approvals before digitising the process. 5) Alignment matters more than intensity High energy without alignment led to friction. When business, IT, and operations agreed on outcomes and trade-offs, execution became smoother and resistance reduced naturally. 6) Clarity beats effort every time Clear ownership, clear success measures, and clear decision rights outperformed even the most hardworking teams operating in ambiguity. The real takeaway: Transformation is less about big launches—and more about what quietly changes in daily decisions and behaviors.

Lessons I Learned Managing AI Projects🔍 AI projects are exciting, but they are also complicated and challenging. Over the years, I’ve led AI and data strategy initiatives across industries, and one thing that I have to make clear to teams from the start is: that AI is not just a tech project; it’s a business transformation. So, what does it take to land AI projects successfully? 1. Start with the Problem: It’s tempting to jump into the latest AI model or software or whatever, but the real question is: What is the business problem statement we want to solve? Aligning AI to a strategic problem ensures impact and adoption. 2. Data is the Foundation: A brilliant AI model with poor data is like a sports car without fuel. How are we getting the model to work if there is no data to train it properly? Data quality, governance, and accessibility should be addressed early; otherwise, AI projects will stall before they even start. 3. Cross-functional collaboration: AI isn’t just for data scientists or coders. Business leaders, IT teams, and end-users must collaborate. The best AI solutions combine technical expertise with business knowledge. 4. Explainability & Trust Matter AI models can be powerful, but if stakeholders don’t understand or trust them, they won’t be used. Transparent AI, ethical considerations, and clear communication are non-negotiable. 5. AI is an Iterative Journey Unlike traditional projects with a clear end, AI requires continuous learning and adaptation. Successful AI projects focus on quick wins, continuous feedback, and scaling over time. What has been your biggest learning in managing AI projects? Would love to hear your thoughts below! 👇 #AI #DataStrategy #Leadership #EmergingTech #DigitalTransformation

I joined Default over two years ago. This week marks a year as "head of growth". We’ve grown over 6x, but made so many mistakes. Here are the 4 biggest lessons I learned and what I’m doing differently now: 1. Relying on ad spend At one point last year, we were spending over $50k/mo on LinkedIn and Google ads combined. We managed to be somewhat profitable, but the vision of 10xing our budgets to grow 5–10x faster wasn’t great. 2. Not experimenting enough Unfortunately, I’m not proud of how many bets and experiments I shipped in the last 12 months. I think we took a few large ones but not enough smaller ones. We could have started new channels faster; we could have experimented with our website, copy, or images more. I hope to fix that this quarter. 3. Not having a launch strategy We either tried to launch too much stuff without any strategy — just by winging it — or we didn’t launch enough of the large, coordinated launches. My idea going forward is to try to do one huge and one smaller launch each quarter. Everything else is not a “launch” — it’s a release. 4. Thinking “effort = results” Huge mistake. It’s so much easier to get the desired results if you spend more time on narrative, topic, or angle selection versus just jumping to tactics from the get-go. Now, I see how much time I could have saved by asking myself, “Is this something our customers would engage with?” sooner. Doing work for the sake of it is a super dangerous trap that doesn’t drive results. -- Those are lessons from my mistakes. But there are also a few lessons I learned that I’ll continue to do (until they stop working): 1. Make big bets Playing it too safe is one of the riskiest decisions you can make. Even with 150+ customers, we’re a smaller player in the space. Doing the same marketing as our competitors won’t help us grow. Sending champagne to people? Yes. Hiring influencers? Yes. Going all-in on partnerships? Yes. All things that are big bets on how we do GTM. 2. Building a network One of the best decisions we made last year was to be “everywhere” on LinkedIn — from ads to organic content. That last one is so crucial. Posting on LinkedIn helped us build a small but solid brand as a company and as a team. It helped so much to build relationships with customers, prospects, and partners well before we engaged them. 3. Data foundations Of course, I’d want us to capture more data — but the reality is that we wouldn’t have the time to fully utilize it. I’m quite happy with the GTM data we capture and how we use it. Perfect? Hell no. It doesn’t tell us what doesn’t work, but it’s just enough to know what’s working. Starting on Salesforce as a company with zero customers was a good decision overall. On to the next year of learnings, fun, and hard work!

2 startup journeys taught me a lot: First, I made a cashout from my bootstrapped startup. The second one failed, despite backing from Google and venture capital firms. Key learnings: #1. First Sales Are About Validation, Not Growth Early sales aren’t about scaling — they’re about proving your idea works. We made our first sales with a subpar product, but instead of rushing to grow, we should’ve focused on refining the product first. #2. Financial Buffer for 9–12 Months Startups need time. If you don’t have at least 9–12 months of living expenses saved, you’re setting yourself up for unnecessary pressure. We had only 6 months’ runway, and it forced us into suboptimal decisions when fundraising our first round. #3. Align Long-Term Goals with Your Partners Short-term alignment isn’t enough. In one of my ventures, short-term goals were perfect, but our long-term visions didn’t match. This created significant pain points that were nearly impossible to resolve. #4. Launch Quickly, Even with a Flawed Product Don’t fear launching an imperfect product. Get it into users’ hands and ask for feedback — your customers will guide you. With my first product, I spent over a year trying to fix the wrong things until I observed a customer struggling to use it. #5. Calculate Your Market Realistically Start with the market you’re in, not where you aspire to be. Many non-US startups, including mine, miscalculate TAM using the US market but operate in a different one. When we started in Ukraine, it was a harsh lesson that entering a new market often requires a new product. #6. Don't Do Anything For Free Every effort should bring value — either money or a case study. But don’t assume you’ll get a case study unless you explicitly agree on it with the customer. #7. Validate Before Scaling Don’t chase growth until you have a proven, sellable product. Focus on testing hypotheses and validating the value you offer. #8. Define Success in Your Tests Design your experiments with clear criteria for success and failure. Know your next steps for each outcome. #9. Dedicate Time to Strategy Founders must allocate at least 20% of their time to strategy, vision, and product roadmap. In our case, the CEO got consumed by sales and operations, and the CTO by delivery, leaving no one thinking strategically. #10. Delegate Effectively Founders aren’t just workers. Managers should manage. We spent too much time on tasks we should’ve delegated, which slowed us down. #11. Start with One Acquisition Channel Focus your resources on mastering a single acquisition channel at first. One solid, scalable channel is all you need to build momentum. ____________________ Remember: Focus on validation before growth. Align long-term goals with partners. Deliver fast and seek feedback. Understand your market. Don’t work for free. Design proper tests. Dedicate time to strategy. Delegate tasks. Scale one acquisition channel at a time.

After completing over 300 IT projects, I’ve learned one thing: Frameworks like Agile, Scrum, and Six Sigma are great… in theory. In real life? Projects rarely go as planned. Why? Because things happen. - Plans change. - Approvals get stuck. - Shipments are late. - People on medical leave. And suddenly, that perfect framework feels useless. Sound familiar? Here’s what I’ve learned after 300+ IT projects: - Start with the End Date: Lock in your target deadline. That’s your anchor. - Work Backwards: Build the timeline in reverse. It’s the only way to stay realistic. - Set Milestones: Break the project into chunks you can actually hit. - Focus, Focus, Focus: Forget perfection. Just hit those milestones, one by one. That’s it. No over-complicating. Just clear steps to move forward. My Biggest Takeaway Frameworks are helpful, but flexibility wins.  Plans change, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to follow a framework. It’s to deliver results. What about you? How do you handle it when plans fall apart?

⏰ How To Improve Your Time Estimates (https://lnkd.in/egWd45RF), an honest article of lessons learned from going massively over on a fixed-price contract — with action points on what our estimates typically miss, how to estimate better and how to be prepared when things go sideways. By Dave Stewart. ✅ “Planned work” may be as little as 20% of the total project effort. ✅ “Extra work” increases proportionally to the complexity of the work. ✅ Account for changes (20%) and unexpected slowdowns (15%). ✅ Access to data, docs, tools, people is a huge estimate trap. ✅ Run postmortems on past projects to anchor yourself to reality. ✅ Estimate with at most 6–6.5 productive hours per day. ✅ Always estimate in ranges, and never in precise numbers. ✅ Safe way to estimate better is to estimate smaller units of work. ✅ Always add at least 15–20% of buffer time: you will need them. ✅ Every new team member speeds up the work by 1.5–1.8×. 🚫 Troubles start when designers aren’t involved in estimates. 🚫 Stakeholders rarely know what causes delays and extra costs. ✅ Re-iterate that late changes are expensive and cause delays. ✅ Life is full of surprises: budget too much, not too little. ✅ When in trouble, raise a hand, rather than doubling down. As Dave has rightfully noted, much of the work we do is actually happening “around the work” — on the fringes of the project, before, between and beyond actual design work. It covers everything, from daily routine tasks (emails, meetings, reports) to complex dependencies, unknowns and legacy limitations. In the past, I was always trying to underpromise and overdeliver. I was thinking that ultimately that would put me in a good light — appearing as accountable, reliable and committed to quality work, despite the initial scope. Yet it has also resulted in poor estimates, delays, late night work and overlapping projects. So instead, I started dedicating time into drafting a very detailed scope of work to estimate better. Typically it includes: 1. That’s how we understood the problem, 2. That’s what we believe the solution requires, 3. That’s the breakdown of tasks we’ll do, 4. That’s the assumptions we make, 5. That’s dependencies we uncovered, 6. That’s data, docs, tools, people need to be involved, 7. That’s how we are planning to solve it, 8. That’s when stakeholder’s (timely) input will be needed, 9. That’s milestones and timelines we commit to, 10. That’s the fixed scope of our final delivery, 11. That’s the delivery date we commit to, 12. That’s how pricing and payment will work, 13 That’s how we’ll deal with late adjustments and scope changes. And most importantly: for every step of the process — in emails, calls, meetings — make sure to mention that late scope changes are very expensive and will eventually cause delays. So ask for the best channels and frequency for communication with stakeholders. Chances are high that you will need it. #ux #design