I often work with product teams who have conversations—sometimes very difficult ones with stakeholders—that are full of unstated assumptions, subjectivity, and a lot of unsubstantiated “I think…” comments. For a … Continue reading Moving from subjective to objective discussions
I was very interested to listen to a recent episode of The Bottom Line on Radio 4, on Dealing with Uncertainty. These kinds of discussions are necessarily high level, but … Continue reading Good relationships help manage uncertainty
A little while ago I was working with a team that had a lot of user research to do. Naturally, we only had limited time, so we needed to decide … Continue reading Prioritising hypothesis tests
We sometimes think we want to eliminate uncertainty. Clarity is helpful in our projects and in our businesses. When I listen to discussions about Brexit (today’s status: approaching the leave … Continue reading Eliminating uncertainty can be excessive
Last week I talked about refactoring and the need—throughout that process—to still be able to deploy frequently. What I did not explain was why it was important to still be … Continue reading Avoid hostage situations when refactoring
One of the things that first got me thinking more constructively about risk management was the problem of how to best deal with risk and uncertainty. In 2014 I wrote … Continue reading The Stoic’s guide to risk management
I’ve written before about not regarding uncertainty and risk as things with a single probability and a single measure of impact. I called these “point risks”, as such a fictitious … Continue reading An example of risk not being a point
