An article that I've wanted to write for years is appearing in this month's Harvard Business Review. It's entitled "Failing By Design" and the first 100 readers who click on this link will be able to download a .pdf of the article for free.
The core premise of the article is that in highly uncertain environments, a certain amount of failure is inevitable. What you want to think about is whether you are making the most of your failures – handling them intelligently, as Sim SItking advocated – or whether you are just wasting them.
For those of you who can't get to it, I will be receiving reprints and can send you a hard copy.