Map Assumptions and Resolve the Riskiest One First
A roadmap hides uncertainty inside features. An assumption map exposes what must be true before those features deserve to exist. Convert proposed work into explicit assumptions. Score impact, uncertainty, and irreversibility separately. Choose the next experiment by risk, not enthusiasm. Replace tested assumptions with evidence and decisions. An incident tool may depend on all of these being true: alert context contains enough information to identify a service;. engineers trust a recommendation they did not derive themselves;. the desired response time matters operationally;. required data can be accessed without unsafe authority;. the workflow happens often enough to justify maintenance. These are not implementation tasks. They are conditions for the build to be valuable, usable, feasible, and safe. Write assumptions as falsifiable statements. “The feature is useful” cannot be tested. “Eight of ten on-call engineers identify the correct service faster with the read-only result” can. The lab uses three dimensions from one to five: Impact: damage if the assumption is false. Uncertainty: weakness of current evidence. Irreversibility: cost of learning after commitment. The example score multiplies impact and uncertainty, then adds irreversibility. The formula is not universal. Its purpose is to force the team to state why one unknown should be resolved before another. A useful test has: a claim that could be false;. a population or realistic sample;. an observable result;.…
Map Assumptions and Resolve the Riskiest One First: A roadmap hides uncertainty inside features. An assumption map exposes what must be true before those…
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