“No dry holes” was effective in stamping out two kinds of rationalizations for poorly conceived drilling operations. One was “learning”—the convenient notion that even if a particular well doesn’t hit, the team will learn so much from the process that future operations will be more successful. Vann said, “I can give you a hundred examples where people made a mistake because they didn’t use knowledge they already had, for every one example where we learn something that is valuable for next time.” The other common rationalization was that certain wells had “strategic value.” Callagher said, “The
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