The United States national-security establishment is vast, yet the United States has failed to meet its initial objectives in almost every one of its major, post-World War II conflicts. Of these troubled efforts, the US wars in Vietnam (1965-73), Iraq (2003-11), and Afghanistan (2001-present) stand out for their endurance, resource investment, human cost, and miscalculated decisions. Because overarching policy goals are distant and open to interpretation, policymakers ground their decisions in the immediate world of short-term objectives, salient tasks, policy constraints, and fixed time schedules. As a consequence, they exaggerate the benefits of their preferred policies, ignore the accompanying costs and requirements, and underappreciate the benefits of alternatives. In Planning to Fail, James H. Lebovic argues that a profound myopia helps explain US decision-making failures. In each of the wars explored in this book, he identifies four stages of intervention. First and foremost, policymakers chose unwisely to go to war. After the fighting began, they inadvisably sought to extend or expand the mission. Next, they pursued the mission, in abbreviated form, to suboptimal effect. Finally, they adapted the mission to exit from the conflict. Lebovic argues that US leaders were effectively planning to fail whatever their hopes and thoughts were at the time the intervention began. Decision-makers struggled less than they should have, even when conditions allowed for good choices. Then, when conditions on the ground left them with only bad choices, they struggled furiously and more than could ever matter. Policymakers allowed these wars to sap available capabilities, push US forces to the breaking point, and exhaust public support. They finally settled for terms of departure that they (or their predecessors) would have rejected at the start of these conflicts. Offering a far-ranging and detailed analysis, this book identifies an unmistakable pattern of failure and highlights lessons we can learn from it.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

If you’re aiming to innovate, failure along the way is a given. But can you fail better? Whether you’re rolling out a new product from a city-view office or rolling up your sleeves to deliver a social service in the field, learning why and how to embrace failure can help you do better, faster. Smart leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents design their innovation projects with a key idea in mind: ensure that every failure is maximally useful. In Fail Better, Anjali Sastry and Kara Penn show how to create the conditions, culture, and habits to systematically, ruthlessly, and quickly figure out what works, in three steps: 1. Launch every innovation project with the right groundwork 2. Build and refine ideas and products through iterative action 3. Identify and embed the learning Fail Better teaches you how to design your efforts to test the boundaries of your thinking, explore crucial interdependencies, and find the factors that can shift results from just acceptable to groundbreaking—or even world-changing. Practical instructions intertwined with compelling real-world examples show you how to: • Make predictions and map system relationships ahead of time so you can better assess results • Establish how much failure you can afford • Prioritize project activities for disconfirmation and iteration • Learn from every action step by collecting and examining the right data • Support efficient, productive habits to link action and reflection • Distill, share, and embed the lessons from every success and failure You may be a Fortune 500 manager, scrappy start-up innovator, social impact visionary, or simply leading your own small project. If you aim to break through without breaking the bank—or ruining your reputation—this book is for you.

David Bach has a plan to help you live and finish rich—no matter where you start So you feel like you’ve started late? You are not alone. What if I told you that right now as you flip through this book, 70% of the people in the store with you are living paycheck to paycheck? What if I told you that the man browsing the aisle to your left owes more than $8,000 in credit card debt? And the woman on your right has less than $1,000 in savings? See? You’re really not alone. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who’ve saved too little and borrowed too much will never catch up financially. Why? Because they don’t know how. You can start late and finish rich—but you need a plan. This book contains the plan. It’s inspiring, easy to follow, and is based on proven financial principles. Building a secure financial future for yourself isn’t something you can do overnight. It will take time and it will take work. But you can do it. I know. I’ve helped millions of people get their financial lives together—and I can help you. Spend a few hours with me—and let me challenge you. Give me a chance to become your coach. Just because you started late doesn’t mean you are doomed to an uncertain future. Whether you’re in your thirties, forties, fifties, or beyond, there is still time to turn things around. It’s never too late to live and finish rich. All it takes is the decision to start. —David Bach Is it too late for me to get rich? Over and over, people share their fears with David Bach, America’s leading money coach and the number-one national best-selling author of The Automatic Millionaire. “If only I had started saving when I was younger!” they say. “Is there any hope for me?” There IS hope, and help is here at last! In Start Late, Finish Rich, David Bach takes the “Finish Rich” wisdom that has already helped millions of people and tailors it specifically to all of us who forgot to save, procrastinated, or got sidetracked by life’s unexpected challenges. Whether you are in your thirties, forties, fifties, or even older, Bach shows that you really can start late and still live and finish rich – and you can get your plan in place fast. In a motivating, swift read you learn how to ramp up the road to financial security with the principles of spend less, save more, make more – and most important, LIVE MORE. And he gives you the time tested plan to do it. The Start Late, Finish Rich promise is bold and clear: Even if you are buried in debt – there is still hope. You can get rich in real estate – by starting small. Find your “Latte Factor” – and turbo charge it to save money you didn’t know you had. You can start a business on the side – while you keep your old job and continue earning a paycheck. You can spend less, save more and make more – and it doesn’t have to hurt. David Bach gives you step-by-step instructions, worksheets, phone numbers and website addresses --everything you need to put your Start Late plan into place right away. And he shares the stories of ordinary Americans who have turned their lives around, at thirty, forty, fifty, even sixty years of age, and are now financially free. They did it, and now it’s your turn. With David Bach at your side, it’s never too late to change your financial destiny. It’s never too late to live your dreams. It’s never too late to be free.

FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL is a book which guides Education Technology professionals through a detailed process, called MAPITTM, that illustrates five phases for developing your school’s Ed Tech Strategic Plan: Needs Identification, Needs Analysis, Recommendations, Feasibility and Implementation.

Business runs on decisions. Business relies on estimates, plans, and projections - and we all know how accurate they tend to be. Careers are made, careers are broken based on perceived accuracy in estimation and planning. But what if the successes and failures of these projects were not based on the prowess of those making the plans? What if successes and failures were instead the result of a more complex set of events? What if our own cognitive biases - our own brains - were creating our inaccuracies, our poor assumptions, and our unreasonable expectations? Why Plans Fail directly addresses our ability to plan, to forecast, and to make decisions. Written by Jim Benson, author of the Shingo Research Award-winning Personal Kanban, urban planner, software developer, and business owner who has planned and built everything from small software projects, to houses, to urban freeway systems, Why Plans Fail is told by someone with much skin in the estimation and planning game. This short work is the first in the Modus Cooperandi MemeMachine series - which looks specifically at underlying issues that directly impact the success of teams, companies, and individuals. The Mememachine series is meant to start conversations and advance discussion.

Written by researchers in education and urban policy, this volume offers useful insights into how to provide urban workers with the educational qualifications they need for real world jobs.