Situations where you prepare diligently but still fail because a core assumption is wrong or you didn’t appropriately weight a truly dominant factor. Especially likely to occur in cases where it’s more comfortable to focus on the familiar instead of looking to unearth the unfamiliar, uncomfortable point that could invalidate all your diligent preparation. (This is most cases.)
Examples:
Different way to fail is ‘failing through modesty/reasonableness’: taking a course that is polite, justifiable, modest — but fails; instead of being more ambitious and determined to succeeed.
Related (1) - Resources are often not the limiting factor - Germans didn’t know how to apply more resources even offered them. Related to barrels vs ammunition metaphor and mythical man-month.
Related (2) - Valuable to have the capacity to invest in multiple paths simultaneously instead of agonising about what prioritisation is reasonable. US program (Manhattan) basically tried every approach in parallel, at scale. Also relevant in Covid vaccine development and rollout.