Project management: should users be allowed to make mistakes during training?
Before deploying a new tool, a project manager may favour a demonstration followed by fully guided exercises. The more precise management question is whether training should also include exploration in which future users can make, understand and correct mistakes.
What the literature establishes
Nina Keith and Michael Frese (2008, Journal of Applied Psychology) synthesised research on error management training, which combines active exploration with explicit encouragement to learn from mistakes. Their meta-analysis indicates a particularly pronounced advantage for adaptive transfer, where the subsequent task differs from those encountered during training. Performing a familiar scenario correctly and handling an unfamiliar situation are therefore not the same measure of readiness.
What mistakes can help people learn
Nina Keith and Michael Frese (2005, Journal of Applied Psychology) examined emotion control and metacognition as mechanisms underlying this form of learning. Their findings support the role of regulating emotional reactions and reflecting on one's own approach to solving a problem. The point is not to maximise failures, but to make it possible to analyse an action that does not produce the expected outcome.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that project managers should replace instructions with unrestricted exploration. These studies justify neither withdrawing support nor exposing users to real consequences. A mistake in a reversible training environment is not equivalent to an incorrect operation on a client record or a production system. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not guarantee
This research concerns training arrangements and performance on defined tasks, not the overall success of a deployment. It does not demonstrate that better performance in an exercise automatically reduces incidents after go-live. Within SHR's Project Management programme, this distinction provides a basis for examining a training design choice without treating it as a guarantee of adoption or compliance.
A practical check in Zurich
For a Zurich project in financial services, insurance, tech or the European headquarters of an international group, compare two training formats in an isolated environment using fictitious data: a guided pathway and an equally long pathway incorporating exploration and error analysis. Randomly assign participants where possible, then give them the same unfamiliar case, without assistance or operational consequences. Measure the proportion who complete the case correctly without help, recording separately any actions that would have breached a critical rule in production. This local test informs a decision about deployment readiness; it does not establish safety under real operating conditions. To go further: explore the Project Management training in Zurich in the canton of Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Project Management in Zurich
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