Three Separate Things

Last month, I was reading an op-ed piece in my local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, written by my former US Congressman and retired US Navy rear admiral, Joe Sestak. The topic of the op-ed is unimportant as I was most struck by something the author mentioned toward the end of his writing.

Sestak wrote:

One of our finest officers, Gen. Colin Powell, often said: “Your responsibility is to tell me what you know. Tell me what you don’t know. Then you’re allowed to tell me what you think. But you always keep those three separated.”

I have always been a big Colin Powell fan not just for all he has accomplished, but also for his wisdom as a leader of people. This quote struck me as being both wise and powerful.

Three categories of information:

• What you know (facts)

• What you don’t know (what is uncertain / what we need to learn)

• What you think (your opinion, not validated as fact)

Clearly assessing situations is of utmost importance when military decisions must be made. Yet I think this clarity also applies nicely to the business and product decisions we have to make on a regular basis. There is plenty of uncertainty throughout the product development lifecycle. There will always be things we know, things we don’t know (but maybe want to know), and our opinions about how we should move forward.

Facts are things we can count on being true as we factor them into our decisions. Things we don’t know will guide both our level of confidence in any decision we need to make and whether we want to invest more time and resources into acquiring additional intelligence into the most critical things we need to know. What we know and what we don’t know are of prime value when deciding on a course of action. Of secondary value, varying on your reputation as a decision-maker, is your opinion of what you think we should do. When you offer your opinion, it is a hypothesis based on your interpretation. We can see why it is important to be crystal clear about which of those three buckets you are referring to when sharing a status update.

That’s why it is a bit alarming to think that most of the time in the corporate world, we seem to overestimate what we know and undervalue what we don’t know. We make decisions such as “We need to deliver these 10 features to attract significant numbers of new customers.” This is said as fact or based on facts, when in reality it is likely a few facts along with a strong opinion where there is a good deal of relevant information we don’t know. This misattribution leads to sub-optimal product decisions and investing large sums of money into features that customers ultimately will not find useful.

Wouldn’t it be better to be explicit about what we still need to know to responsibly move ahead with additional investment in a feature or product? Wouldn’t it make sense to determine how much we are willing to spend to get the unknown information we need to make a go/no go decision?

Using a continuous discovery process as espoused by Teresa Torres with explicit recognition of what we don’t know but need to know before pushing full-speed ahead on an opportunity seems aligned with the wisdom General Powell was hitting at in his guidance. When we are explicit about our uncertainty and prioritize the most critical things we need to learn, we make better product decisions and do so in the most cost-effective manner possible. Opportunity solutions trees help us visualize what we know, what we need to know, and our hypotheses, aligning perfectly with the three buckets General Powell referenced in his quote.

Focusing on identifying the known, need to know, and hypotheses will lead to better products, smarter investments, and an increased likelihood of achieving our desired business outcomes. What could be better than that?

So remember, be clear about:

• What we know

• What we don’t know

• And what is merely an opinion