The idea of “Failure Demand” comes from systems thinker, John Seddon, who describes it as “unnecessary burden on the system.” By looking at removing failure demand on a system, you free up more capacity to focus on value added work. Much of failure demand also maps to the lead concept of “waste” although not all “waste” is the same as failure demand.
Some classic examples (and tell-tale signs) I see with companies include:
- Poor quality work – Features that are not tested, or well designed end up generating bugs. A smell to look for is lots of issues…

