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The intention was:

The intention was to build a properly functioning rocket as quickly as possible which could compete with The Soviet Union’s Sputnik.

The course of action was:

The course of action was to put a lot of money into the project in a short amount of time so that a good, competitive rocket could be built as quickly as possible.

The result was:

The result was 22 unsuccessful training flights. The rocket just did not want to function properly.

The lesson was:

The lesson was that they did not reflect on it fundamentally. There seemed to be a different defect 22 times. The same error did not appear more than once. Only when they performed an in-depth investigation of the entire set up of the program did they achieve a successful flight. Making repairs alone was therefore not sufficient.

Further:

The program leader was very clear when he said;

“Failure analysis is basically research, when you get down to it. You recover and learn from mistakes; you don’t do that with success.”