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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.

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