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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.

Criteria for failure

The criteria for failure are heavily dependent on context of use, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. As well, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or an neutral situation.

It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.

Common usage

A context in which failure is frequently used is in the 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.

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.

Jared Diamond lists some reasons by which a society can collapse (book):

1. failure to anticipate,
2. failure to perceive.

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