Embracing Productive Failure in GIS: Why Mistakes Drive Better Mapping
/If you’ve ever built a geodatabase, wrestled with coordinate systems, or tried to reconcile parcel boundaries that simply won’t close, you already know this truth: working in GIS is a cycle of trial, error, correction, and improvement. Yet many GIS professionals hesitate to embrace the value of failure. We often strive for flawless workflows and clean outputs, but overlooking the role of mistakes can hinder our ability to learn from deeper insights and drive innovation.
This is where the concept of productive failure comes in.
What is Productive Failure?
Productive failure is the concept that struggling with a problem—and even failing to solve it initially—can lead to a deeper understanding and better long-term outcomes. The initial failure isn’t wasted effort; it creates the groundwork for insight by forcing us to test assumptions, push boundaries, and actively engage with the problem.
In education and research, productive failure has been shown to help learners build more durable skills. In GIS, the concept is just as powerful.
How Productive Failure Shows Up in GIS Work
GIS professionals experience productive failure all the time—often without naming it:
Coordinate System Confusion: Misaligned datasets may initially seem like a frustrating setback. But wrestling with projections teaches you more about spatial reference systems than any tutorial could.
Parcel Fabric Adjustments: Struggling to reconcile overlapping deeds or inconsistent surveys often reveals how boundary data is historically imperfect—and trains you to work with both geometry and legal nuance.
Data Model Missteps: Building a geodatabase the “wrong way” first can help you see why topology rules, domains, and subtypes matter, leading to stronger schema design next time.
Geoprocessing Failures: A buffer tool crashing or returning unexpected results might push you to revisit parameters, attribute fields, or feature types—and that troubleshooting process strengthens your technical instincts.
Each of these examples demonstrates that the “failure” stage is often where real learning occurs.
Why GIS Professionals Should Lean Into Failure
Deeper Understanding – By troubleshooting errors, you’re not just memorizing steps—you’re learning why GIS works the way it does.
Problem-Solving Mindset – GIS is as much art as science; failed attempts sharpen your ability to think flexibly and creatively.
Resilience in Projects – Not every dataset or workflow will cooperate. Being comfortable with setbacks makes you more adaptable when managing projects with messy data or shifting requirements.
Innovation – Many new methods or workflows in GIS come from failed attempts at conventional solutions. The willingness to fail opens space for new approaches.
Putting Productive Failure Into Practice
Document your missteps: Keep a troubleshooting log of what didn’t work and why. This is often more valuable than a list of “successful” steps.
Encourage experimentation: When training colleagues or new GIS analysts, let them test workflows before showing the “right” answer.
Shift perspective: Instead of asking, “How do I avoid mistakes?” ask, “What did this mistake teach me about my data or my tools?”
Share failures openly: Within GIS teams, normalize conversations about problems encountered. They’re often more instructive than polished project showcases.
Conclusion
GIS is inherently iterative—layers don’t line up, data doesn’t reconcile, and tools sometimes fail spectacularly. But instead of viewing these setbacks as wasted time, we should recognize them as essential parts of our growth. Productive failure is what transforms GIS professionals from tool operators into problem-solvers, innovators, and true spatial thinkers.
The next time your parcel fabric refuses to balance or your spatial join won’t run, remember: that frustration may be the most productive part of your learning process.