Capability Conversation - Manage Uncertainty

Managing Uncertainty

Manage Uncertainty Explicitly

What this capability means: Make uncertainty explicit and choose actions that create value or evidence while preserving options, limiting irreversible risk, and reducing the cost of being wrong.

Working well when...

  1. Known, assumed, suspected, and unknown are distinguished.
  2. Consequential uncertainties are connected to decisions andobjectives. 
  3. Small, reversible commitments are used when information is likely to improve.
  4. Evidence mechanisms match the type and consequence of uncertainty.

First-pass conversation

  • What is known, observed, assumed, suspected, and unknown? 
  • Which uncertainty could invalidate the objective or proposed means? 
  • What is the cost of discovering we are wrong later? 
  • What option can be preserved, or what commitment can be made more reversible? 
  • What evidence mechanism best fits this uncertainty?

Warning signs to discuss

  • Forecasts or opinions are presented as certainty.
  • Everything is called complex without specifying what is unknown.
  • Large commitments are made before important evidence can arrive.
  • Experiments are run without a prediction, decision purpose, or review.

Facilitator reminder

Related areas: Effective Planning, Product & Objective Discovery, Feedback, Governance