The Cone of Uncertainty
I recently found myself in a new and uncertain situation. For over a year I have been leading the design efforts for several new client and consumer interactive tools all under one parent brand. That position will end in a couple weeks, due to the parent brand deciding that design is not pertinent. Deep breath. I have unexpectedly been pushed from one set of “knowns” to a new set of “unknowns”. I immediately begin to reflect on great a talk I attended by Paul Saffo about effective forecasting and how to understand the cone of uncertainty. In a nutshell, the cone of uncertainty is the beginning of a project in which you have little information, and as you gain information over time the uncertainty then tends to decrease to the point of 0% at completion. The further out the completion the larger the uncertainty. I can better guess what I’ll be doing in 10 min (refilling my coffee) than what I’ll be doing in 10 years (who knows?). I am at 100% uncertainty having just moved to a new country and having just lost my job. The rules of thumb that Saffo outlines to effectively forecast applies to business, projects, problems, and… our personal lives. It’s about mapping what might be the “edges” of what can happen. You can take any event in a moment of time. In uncertain times forecasting is more important than ever. Uncertainty is opportunity!
Saffo’s six rules to effective forecasting:
- Define a Cone of Uncertainty
- Look for the S Curve
- Embrace the Things That Don’t Fit
- Hold Strong Opinions Weakly
- Look Back Twice as Far as You Look Forward
- Know When Not to Make a Forecast
Long Now’s recap of his talk provides better detail to each of his rules and a few more thoughts. Didn’t seem right to just copy/paste here… so please take a read here on the Long Now Blog.
And here is video of Saffo’s talk, he’s a great presenter and worth watching (01:25:51)
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