Deciding
The committee
An idea you are carrying alone, and nobody around you has the time or the standing to contradict it seriously before the meeting.
How it goes
do it yourself- Name four or five jobs genuinely affected, and name them precisely: not “an expert”, but “a data protection officer”, “a head of customer support”, “a procurement manager”.
- Have each speak in turn about your idea, with their own concern, their own vocabulary, and one objection that could be measured or checked.
- Then ask where they disagree WITH EACH OTHER. That is the only question that really counts.
The instruction, word for word
copy it, then correct itIdea I want to stress-test: [your idea, in five lines, as you would present it in a meeting]. Assemble a committee of five people, each with a precise job that is genuinely affected: - a data protection officer; - a head of customer support; - a procurement manager; - someone who will have to use the tool every day; - someone with nothing to gain from this succeeding. Each speaks in turn, in their own vocabulary, and states ONE checkable objection: something that could be gone and measured, not a general worry. Then, and this matters most: tell me where these five disagree WITH EACH OTHER, and what I will have to settle myself.
- Jobs, not roles
- “A technical expert” produces the objection of a technical expert, which is to say nothing. A precise job title produces the concerns of that job.
- “ONE checkable objection”
- The limit of one, and the demand that it be checkable, cut out the list of general worries that comes out by default.
- The fifth member
- The one with nothing to gain. Without them the whole committee debates the arrangements and nobody debates the principle.
- The disagreements
- The real output. Five converging opinions teach you nothing; their contradictions are your agenda.
What you get out of it
Taken one by one, the opinions are predictable, and you could have written them yourself. Their disagreements, on the other hand, map the actual trade-off you will have to make, and it nearly always sits on a point you had filed away as a detail of execution.
Going further
Add someone with nothing to gain from the project succeeding. That is the one member of the committee who asks the questions nobody asks in the room.