Hacking your way to an Evidence-Informed Mindset

Evidence-Informed - Making decisions informed by evidence. This includes decisions such as:

• Prioritize

• Go/no-go

• Continue / Stop / Pivot

Opinions, Convictions, Lack of Trust, Power dynamics, and Impatience make it hard to introduce evidence-informed thinking into an organization’s day-to-day decisions, whether at the level of a Product Manager/Owner, Portfolio Leader, or the C-suite.

Over the years, I’ve collected a few cultural hacks to make this mindset shift a bit easier:

• Minimize the use of the term “Requirements” (which implicitly and subconsciously infers that something is required). I prefer the language of Options, Bets, or, if that’s too hardcore initially, Items.

• Identify a set of attributes to consider (e.g., direct value, future opportunity, strategic alignment) as part of the decision - at a minimum, this helps flush out the rationale behind an opinion and helps everybody align

• Explicitly include a “Learn / Reflect” stage as part of the life cycle—and make sure everyone knows it’s there and that it actually takes place. This both drives learning and improves future decisions but also associates some accountability with the conviction to “go do it.”

• Agree on a clear definition of what a “Home Run Success” looks like - in outcome/impact-oriented language (“this moved the needle this way” vs. “we built this, and it is working”) - BEFORE committing.

• Agree on outcome-oriented leading indicators that signal we are heading towards success.

• Agree on a clear definition of what a “Fast Failure” looks like - what would be a leading indicator that we are going nowhere and need to stop/pivot. (Annie Duke calls this “Kill Criteria”)

• Identify a bright spot—an example of evidence-informed behavior that was used to unlock business value or avoid significant failure/waste.

• Gamify it. For example, one business group I work with decided to start a “Shark Tank” process. This is also another hack: If you can get people to come up with their own ways of introducing evidence-informed behavior, embrace and amplify those even if they’re not exactly prescribed in your process.

Finally, It’s not a hack per se but choose your battles. Live to fight another day. It might be too late to introduce evidence-informed thinking to an initiative already in flight.

In my experience, evolution often works better than revolution for this shift.

Now that I think of it, evolution often works better than revolution for most shifts.