What are some effective ways to manage project uncertainty?

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Product managers often face uncertainty in their projects, whether they're launching a new product, extending an existing one, taking on a new role, or working on something else. Managing uncertainty is crucial in any of these scenarios.

The various problems encountered during the preliminary research, design, development, testing, and final acceptance of a product may lead to the loss of corporate interests. Change in requirements, personnel adjustments, and prolonged project cycles are common factors that can contribute to uncertainty. As a product manager, it's essential to make decisions for the company and be able to revisit those decisions.

Indecision is the greatest risk brought on by uncertainty. As a product manager, your job is to bring products to market, allowing for real-time learning and iteration. Failure due to uncertainty can result in stalling the iterative process.

To manage uncertainty effectively, two components are necessary:

• Reducing uncertainty to actionable levels.
• Controlling the risk management process during product implementation.

Ⅰ. Simplifying Uncertainty Management

Uncertainty can be daunting, particularly when starting a new initiative in a new company. Making rash decisions or taking action without sufficient information can be detrimental to customers and the company.

However, it's crucial to take action to control uncertainty so that informed and "good enough" decisions can be made. Here are a few implementation plans of product control based on my experience in handling large and small projects over the years, hoping to help others:

1. List the information required to make a "relatively good" decision.
2. Identify the information you lack when making the decision.
3. Prioritize the information gap that needs to be addressed first.
4. Determine who or what can fill the information gap, starting with the highest priority.
5. Develop a plan to track missing information.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 until a "good enough" decision can be made.
7. Set triggers to reconsider your decision as needed.

1. Identify the Information Required for a "Good Enough" Decision

To start, it's important to note that waiting for perfect or even great information is not feasible. Spending too much time gathering information can lead to missed opportunities to release products and learn from them in real-time.

So, what does a "good enough" decision entail? Suppose you have three options to choose from, each with a 33% chance of being the right decision with zero information. Gathering enough information so that one option is slightly better than the others, with a 34% chance of being correct, is considered a "good enough" decision.

However, when faced with an almost infinite number of possibilities, such as sorting a roadmap with 10 initiatives, the problem needs to be broken down into smaller ones. By asking "what is the first right feature to release" instead of "what is the right roadmap," you narrow down the options to 10 instead of 3.6 million. Each choice now has a 10% chance of being correct with zero information, and you just need enough information to get one of them right 11% of the time.

Once you understand what a "relatively good" decision means, it's time to identify the necessary information to make that decision. While the types of decisions may vary, they all require the following information:

• What problems need solving?
• Who will benefit from the solution and what are their pain points?
• What does success look like?
• What resources are required to achieve success?
• What constraints must be considered?
• What risks are involved in solving the problem?

Listing everything you know for each type will help build confidence, but there is still a lack of information that needs to be identified.

2. Identify the information you lack when making the decision

After listing everything you know, take a step back and reassess the problem to identify the information you currently lack to make a "relatively good" decision. Write down the missing information in pen or on the computer and make a list of all the problems at hand. This step is similar to what you might have learned in school - write down all your questions, and you're halfway there.

During this step, list everything that comes to mind without worrying about prioritization. By bringing all your concerns and unknowns to the surface, you can address them one by one. Once you have a comprehensive list of the unknowns, it's time to prioritize them.

3. Prioritize the information gaps that need to be addressed the most

As a product manager, it's important to recognize that not all information is equally important. Your job is to prioritize the gaps in your knowledge. Which unknowns are crucial to your decision?

One helpful method is to create a list of stack rankings. This involves assigning priorities to the gaps in your knowledge based on their impact on the decision. By doing this, you can identify which gaps need to be addressed immediately and which ones can be dealt with later.

4. Identify who or what can provide the information needed to address the highest priority gaps

Applying the Pareto principle, you'll find that the first 1-3 information gaps you prioritize are the most critical to your decision-making process, while the rest are less significant.

For these top priority gaps, brainstorm ideas about where you can obtain the information you need. Consider reaching out to customers, colleagues, executives, market reports, indicator dashboards, running experiments, or sending out questionnaires.

Once you've generated ideas for obtaining the necessary information, it's time to develop a plan to address these gaps.

5. Develop a plan to retrieve missing information

Create a plan that focuses on learning quickly and includes backup options if things don't go according to plan. It's also important to keep your manager informed of your progress by sharing the following:

• What are the three most critical pieces of information needed to solve the problem?
• What are your plans for acquiring the information, and when do you expect to have it?
• Find out if there is any missing information your manager may have that could speed up the process.
• Identify any other potential actions to bridge the information gap.
• If progress is impeded, seek assistance from another person in charge.

Remember, your manager is invested in your progress, and you can't make effective decisions if you're struggling. Sharing information with your manager is not a sign of weakness but a way to keep them informed of your progress and hold yourself accountable. It's a useful way to manage upward.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 until you can make a "good enough" decision

Completing these steps once will allow you to make a solid decision around 95% of the time. However, in certain cases, obtaining the necessary information can drastically alter the fundamental decision, requiring you to repeat the process.

7. Set triggers for when to reconsider your decision

Making a decision that we are only relatively confident in is not sufficient. We should actively plan to reassess our decision after we have passed a specific threshold. As this topic is rich enough to warrant a separate article, I will cover it in the next one.

In this article, we learned how to reduce uncertainty to a point where we can take action. By revisiting decisions, we will prevent ourselves from making decisions that will be permanently wrong. Furthermore, as a bonus, I will delve into how to handle emotional self-care in the face of uncertainty.

Product management is a profession that frequently confronts constraints and risks. However, these constraints encourage innovation, requiring us to work quickly, deliver imperfect products, and commit to learning from real outcomes. This is why lean thinking is so valuable.

Product managers are necessary precisely because of the uncertainty. If your company already knows everything that will happen, then they do not need to hire you. Due to the uncertainty, we adopt a humble approach, eagerly seeking to learn, experiment, and iterate. Additionally, the benefit of uncertainty is that we have the flexibility to revisit decisions over time.