DEALING WITH GUESSING

Let’s be honest: You’re going to have guesses. If you’re working with a team, they’re going to have guesses. That’s fine, it’s natural. These guesses are going to bounce around and might distract you if you’re not experienced at solving hard problems.

If you or your team seem are distracted by guessing, I’ve found it useful not to suppress it but to write it down and get it out of your system. Put it in an envelope and ignore it. If in the end, you were right, pat yourself on the back.

This is actually a great exercise with a team: Get everyone to write down what they think the root cause to your tough problem is, and put them all in a box that you lock tight. Better yet, get them to write down what they think the root cause is, why, and what data they’d use to convince everyone else.

After the problem is solved, if your guess ended up being right, ask yourself if you had the data on hand to be able to decisively convince others to prioritize your guess over theirs. Until we actually know the root cause, there’s no effective way to prioritize different guesses, and the best guess is likely to be lost.