Chapter Nine: Identifying Hidden Assumptions
“We loosely define an iteration in discovery as trying out at least one new idea or approach…To set your expectations, teams competent in modern discovery techniques can generally test on the order of 10–20 iterations per week.”
— Marty Cagan, INSPIRED
“Just assume that you are being overconfident, and give yourself a healthy margin of error.”
— Chip and Dan Heath, Decisive
I was reading the news one morning when I encountered a story about an affordable housing project in Portland, Oregon (where I live). For decades, the city invested in gentrification policies that resulted in the displacement of many underserved families from Portland’s historically Black neighborhood. To try to rectify the damage done, the city invested millions of dollars into a condominium building designed to help some of these displaced families return to their neighborhood.
The article, however, was critical of the project. Even though the city worked with the developer, granting tax breaks in exchange for offering the condos at below market rate, and the condos were available only to displaced residents, the displaced families were not opting to buy the condos. Years into the project, long after the city had estimated the building would be at full capacity, most units were not sold. In the end, the city had no choice but to let the developer sell the units on the open market.
This story upset me. Tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money was spent, with little impact. The city council had the best of intentions and tried to do the right thing, but the impact of their project fell short. Why did this happen?
The answer is simple. The city council and the real estate developer made a number of assumptions about what displaced families wanted for housing, and neither thought to test those assumptions. The developer built a building consisting primarily of one- and two-bedroom units. Both the city council and the developer thought this was how they could maximize impact and help the most families. Unfortunately, most of the displaced families were families of four or more. One- or two-bedroom condos wouldn’t work for them. The city spent millions of dollars building the wrong product for the outcome they wanted.
Sadly, the city of Portland is not the only organization to make this mistake. Every product team has, at one time or another, found themselves facing the hard reality that they spent time, energy, and money building the wrong product. Why does this happen? This chapter will explore why so many teams find themselves in this situation and provide a reliable process for reducing the chance that it will happen to you.