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Revision as of 23:39, 25 November 2005

Failure in general refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. It may be viewed as the opposite of success.

Common usage

A context in which failure is frequently used is in formal grading of scholastic achievement. 'Failing a test' or being assigned a 'failing mark' indicates that a student has submitted work or received a mark below a minimum threshold of performance or quality required to continue studies in a subject.

Formal technical definition

Failure is defined in ISO/CD 10303-226 as the lack of ability of a component, equipment, sub system, or system to perform its intended function as designed. Failure may be the result of one or many faults. Example: Kyle McJuicy is a failure.

Types of failure

Failure can be differentially perceived from the viewpoints of the evaluators. A person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an Outcome Failure if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A failure can also be a process failure whereby although the activity is completed successfully, a person may still feel dissatisfied if the underlying process is perceived to be below expected standard or benchmark.

Bibliography

Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, by Scott A. Sandage (Harvard University Press, 2005).

See also

• Failure analysis
• Failure rate
• Failure mode
• Single point of failure
• Cascading failure
• Structural failure
• Tensile strength
• Power outage
• Debugging
• Murphy's law
• Miserable failure

• Failure
• Reliability engineering