Henry Petroski Quotes

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.

I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, because without a failure criterion against which to measure the calculated result, it is a meaningless number.

Sometimes the best way to learn something is by doing it wrong and looking at what you did.

Experience is making mistakes and learning from them.

When you can look at failure and say, 'What is the worst case scenario,' it's not as bad as it seems.

Sometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes; you actually want to make them - if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix.

What is commonly overlooked in using the computer is the fact that the central goal of design is still to obviate failure, and thus it is critical to identify exactly how a structure may fail. The computer cannot do this by itself . . .

Often I'll try things that just won't happen the way I'd like them to, so hearing that they're not working saves me some wear and tear the next time around.

Every time I make a mistake with a company, I write it out and try to figure out why it happened.

Risk and failure is a part of our equation, and if you are seeing too little failure, you are actually probably not taking enough risks.

Finding out exactly what went wrong is key toward preventing future debacles.

I think mistakes are the essence of science and law. It's impossible to conceive of either scientific progress or legal progress without understanding the important role of being wrong and of mistakes.

There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.

You learn more when things go wrong.

We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Failures are infinitely more instructive than successes.

Failures happen in any system.

We respond to the unknown by trying to retreat from it, or trying to comprehend it, or trying to control it. The first approach is evident in longings for return to a simpler "risk-free" life that never was. The second is reflected in the fantasy of synoptic risk assessment: Measure the requisite probabilities and trade-offs, calculate the social risk-benefit function, and the common good will have been defined. The third approach is in the tradition of professional engineering. It serves us well but, as engineers have been among the first to point out, has met its match and more in the complex social problems it increasingly is called upon to address.

Try not to say, 'I'm a failure.' Instead, ask, 'What can I do better? What did I do wrong?' Then re-approach.

I am big on - even with our whole team - it's always about, well, what were the lessons learned? Something didn't work out? What are the lessons learned? What are the lessons learned?

Failure is an amazing data point that tells you which direction not to go.

As a team leader, I have always told my team to never give up. Analyse why you failed so that, next time, you know what should not be done.

Failure is easy to handle because once you fail, the options are very simple... like, 'Try something different,' or, 'Maybe if you do the same thing, do it in a different way.'

There have been failures in the past, and I know there will be in future as well. But I have learnt from them.

You make mistakes that you want to learn from, that you don't want to happen again, and that's what I try to do.