I believe, failures are the first clumsy steps taken on the road to success. At one point or another, everybody encounters failure but what truly matters is what we  learn from them. My most notable instance of failure is during my initial days in my current company, Analytics Quotient. I was assigned to design and implement a data visualization platform which  involveded data integration using five disjointed datasets and test case scenarios implementation in R, a tool that I wasn’t fully well-versed in.In previous experiences with such projects, I had implemented test case scenarios using MySQL. On basis of my learnings from my previous experiences, I defined the timelines for the project. In actuality, the five different datasets proved more complex, with more unexpected anomalies than I predicted. Out of wanting to showcase my skillset, I addressed the challenge alone. Unfortunately, it took me a lot of time to understand and harmonize the data, leaving very little time for test cases implementation. To further aggravate the problem, data structure made the logic implementation in test cases in R unusually difficult. Finally, at the eleventh hour, I informed my manager about the status of the project and the problems I was facing. Considering the status of the project we had to extend the timelines, leading to a heavy loss in our team accruals. My manager, who considered the project was top priority, was disappointed that we failed to deliver it on time. I immediately took responsibility for my mistakes and apologized for not providing the right timelines and not taking a collaborative approach during delivery.My biggest takeaway from this experience is, no two datasets are exactly alike and I should never make decisions on basis of assumptions. My failure to use R deftly propelled me to take online tutorials in R to broaden my knowledge-base which later assisted me in my multiple projects. Later, I  even conducted workshops and training sessions for my peers on complex statistical calculations using R. Also, I believe if I had communicated the issues to my manager ahead of time, I could have managed to meet the project requirements on time. Now I never let an awkward conversation prevent me from communicating the project status.