Talking about failure is trendy. Learning from a failure is valuable. Deciding that a project has failed is less glamorous. I haven’t updated on the progress of my work for a while now, mainly because progress was complicated. Some days, the impact seemed really promising and the technology design seemed to take several steps forward. Other days, the impact seemed constrained and the technology faced limitations. Back and forth, we asked new questions, desperately sought answers, and dealt with the reality that this project was a lot more complicated than we set out thinking.
To start from the beginning, I was hired to develop a soil moisture sensor which would be Proximity’s first step into precision agriculture. Precision agriculture is a relative term, especially when comparing developing and developed countries. For Myanmar, where farming practices haven’t modernized, we concluded that the first step would be to introduce farmers to a new way of decision making. Instead of relying solely on traditions or instincts, this tool would introduce the idea of making decisions based on real data from their farms. Measuring soil moisture is not a new idea. There are tons of technologies that exist. And it’s also probably not the tool that is going to revolutionize farming in Myanmar. But we approached this project as the beginning of a much larger journey to empower farmers and unleash the potential of Myanmar’s agricultural economy.
Farmers traditionally decide whether or not to irrigate based on how dry the surface of their soil appears. Instead, if farmers can easily check the amount of water at the root level, they often irrigate less. Reduction in irrigation leads to resource/labor savings, but it can also keep the crops healthier and lower the risk of fungus and root rot. We ran a pilot during which we sold cheap, off-the-shelf moisture sensors and monitored impact. We observed farmers who reduced their water usage by 30%. They told us they valued being able to know what their plants needed without guessing, and even if yields hadn’t increased yet, the savings in resources were appealing. All in all, the environmental benefits, economic benefits, and empowerment opportunities seemed promising.
Amidst the early stages of our design process, one consideration stood out as particularly valuable and will likely apply to much of my work in the future. Within the world of cutting-edge technology, there is often the belief that greater precision has greater value. Out here, value and precision have a complex relationship. Initially, increasing precision has an increased impact. But then you see that the impact plateaus, and a better, more precise product doesn’t have greater value for the customer. And finally, you may even have that the increased precision and complexity reduces the impact of the product and has other detrimental consequences. So as we compared technologies of varying levels of precision and spoke with farmers to get their feedback, we tried to narrow in on the sweet spot that would provide the greatest impact, regardless of how low the precision ended up being to get us there. At the end of this investigation, we selected a remarkably simple technology. The amount farmers stood to gain from an advanced product wasn’t enough to justify the higher price. But as I have discovered, simple is often the hardest to get right.
After we settled on the basic technology principles, we identified all the ways we could modify and add value. We pursued making the technology customized to Myanmar soils and we designed teaching material to go along with the product. But as time went on, we found ourselves questioning the direction of the project. We ran more trials and found that the demographic of farmers interested in buying the sensor was narrower than we had initially believed. And while some farmers saw resource savings and access to better information as very valuable, others were unenthusiastic. The technology was finicky and hard to calibrate. The necessary price of the product, to cover the manufacturing and sales costs, seemed disproportionate to the value that the product would have. And as these problems accumulated and as our frustration built, we found ourselves in the middle of several larger strategic questions. As an organization, do we prioritize fulfilling needs that farmers readily express, or do we see ourselves in a position to educate about new needs and push the market forward? Do we want to be providing tools that are bottom tier and reach the largest demographic, or should we put energy into a more advanced tier of products focusing on a different market? Would we consider modifying the infrastructure of the organization if it inhibits our ability to have certain kinds of impact? These questions launched a series of more strategic vision conversations with the leaders of the organization, and we needed to reevaluate the path forward for our sensor.
The reevaluation phase gave us the chance to put forth every concern and layout the potential paths forward. We could move forward with the understanding that it would take a lot longer and be costly to put this product on the market, we could pivot and try selling a higher precision, higher tier product and focus on different customers, or we could stop entirely and take the lessons learned into the next project. Ultimately, we put the project on pause, to shift focus to other impact opportunities and give time for these bigger questions to be explored. We failed to launch a product, but by deciding to not manufacture something that could have questionable impact or incur financial losses, we made a strong decision. Nonetheless, following the meeting where the final decision was made, I was emotionally torn. In some sense, I felt positive about our growth as a team and the way future projects could build on our work. But in another sense, I was deflated. I came here with the goal of producing a product, and after four months of working solely towards that, it was over.
Overall, especially after having time to digest it, I don’t feel bad about having stopped this project. One of my colleagues told me that many investors actually prefer to know that you have experience with failure, and I can emphatically agree that the lessons we learned could never have been learned out of a smooth-sailing project. The ways in which we had to think critically and examine the situation from different perspectives taught me to have the guts to adapt when things don’t go as planned. I learned how important it is to listen to the felt needs of the users, even if they don’t align with the needs you identify. I experienced how a business strategy can support tremendous impact in certain ways, but can inhibit impact in others. And I had the opportunity to explore skills much outside the realm of my engineering background. The past few weeks, I had the opportunity to work on service design and business modeling for a separate project, and I have loved the continued opportunities Proximity has offered me to grow and expand my skills. Through moments of success and moments of struggle, I have grown every day of this experience. It’s hard to imagine leaving, but I know I am leaving with new confidence to seize my future and tackle every twist and turn along the way.
The first three rows of photos and the title photo are from a recent work trip to the delta region. We were doing user research to inform the development of a soil testing and fertilizer recommendation service for farmers. We interviewed and presented to groups of farmers, shown in the second row. The third row is from one of the boat rides we took. Some villages are only accessible by water. In this region, Proximity’s extension agents even have an official, Proximity-branded boat!
The next row has two photos from an Arduino workshop I created and led with the Design Team. I was teaching about how to use Arduino to collect and log data, to help automate how they run tests and diagnose problems. In the photos, one group is demoing their progress. The workshop was a bit last minute, but it came together well and they are moving ahead to implement what I taught!
Finally, I worked with members of the media team to put together a polished display that showcased the best ideas that came out of the three design bootcamps. I’m really happy with how it came out, especially the post-it sketches!
