"I would like sorbet, please!"
“Sorbet coming up! Hey, wanna try a tiny little scoop of the sorbet first? You’re gonna slurp your way through 4 big dollops of this tangy frozen water, so let's make sure you like it ... Whaddya think?”
“Hang on, this isn’t creamy!”
“That's right, it’s sorbet. The sorbet you just tasted is literally as creamy as it’s possible for sorbet to be ... not at all. May I make a suggestion? Why don't you try a tiny little scoop of this ice cream? ... Any better?”
“Woah that’s incredible! I love it. But wait: is this still low fat?”
“Ah no, this isn’t low fat. Here, I have one more tiny scoop for you. This one is low-fat ice cream.”
“
“OK so out of the three choices, it seems that you prefer ice cream, even though it contains some fat. If it helps, here’s some information about why fat isn’t all bad actually. Also my ice cream is low in refined sugar and was made fresh today with sustainable ingredients.”
“Yes, I'll have the ice cream of course – that’s what I said all along!”
“Of course you did, silly me.”
---
The moral of the story: people can rarely know what they want until you've given it to them (and then they mostly know they don't want whatever you gave them.)
This is one of the frustrations that often happens when a non-expert is briefing an expert. Think: a client requesting something from a freelancer, an executive sharing requirements with their dev team, or someone asking you for ... what?
It's tempting, oh so tempting, for experts to wish that clients, execs and others could just tell us what they really want up front. And for non-experts to wish that the experts could just understand what we really want without a load of back-and-forth.
Here's the twist. For every area you're an expert in, you're a non-expert in hundreds of other areas.
You know about the tradeoffs in your areas of expertise. Why not take responsibility for surfacing the trade-offs you know are going to exist in those other areas?
Next time you're itching to give requirements to an expert, try asking:
"Before we commit to this approach, could you show me 3 quick options that illustrate the main trade-offs in this space?"
Most experts will be thrilled that you asked. You're helping them do their job better, which is helping you to make an informed choice based on real trade-offs that you can't see yet.
Everyone's happy when those tradeoffs get surfaced early and cheaply.
Ideally before someone's choking down 4 huge scoops of sorbet.
– Tom & Corissa x
We're Crown & Reach, the people who figure out why good products are failing. We help CEOs of profitable-but-precarious companies figure out why things aren't working as they want – despite doing everything 'right'.
