I’m sure we’ve all known people who have seemingly had an answer for everything. It is one thing to be confident answering but another to actually know whether the answer is the right one. One thing I have embraced recently is the feeling that it is ok to not have all the answers. 

With the pandemic still affecting our day-to-day lives, our understanding of the world around us is constantly changing. Our beliefs and ideas on which we base our judgements are forever in a state of flux. The way we now think, behave, react emotionally and physically, and the environment we live and work in can seem alien at times. To embrace the feeling of not knowing can be uncomfortable, but our ability to adjust is increasingly necessary as our frames of reference shift. All our clients at Furthermore are going through huge periods of change, customer mindsets are shifting, the old ways of doing things are not working as they used to and new opportunities are presenting themselves. 

A survey by McKinsey discovered that companies across the world “have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years. And the share of digital or digitally enabled products in their portfolios has accelerated by seven years”. To stay ahead of the competition you have to make quick but informed decisions. To do this with confidence, you need the right methods and tools in place to allow you to navigate your path to success. 

Our aim as we help to transform business processes is to enable our clients to become more adept with modern approaches to their decision making. The first hurdle to overcome is the idea that you need to know what the final solution will be in order to succeed.  A trial and error approach and an appetite to try new things is all that is needed. Testing your ideas using the method most appropriate for the hypotheses is ideal but if you can’t for whatever reason embark on some evidence gathering, don’t be afraid to try a leaner approach or a myriad of smaller, quicker testing methods. Just 15 minutes with a few key users is better than no qualitative research at all. You can canvas opinions with a survey or test a concept with real customers using a quick prototype, remembering that not all sprints need to look the same. 

Refine your ideas and spin off new ones on your journey to customer success. Push things live and monitor the results. Let the outcomes from one sprint rollover into subsequent sprints as you set experiments running and wait for your results. If a sprint doesn’t neatly fit into your allocated cycles, put the demo in for a few days later. 

By embracing the unknown, you may discover your next big opportunity. As one idea overlaps another, the time between sprints becomes a creative space where ideas collide and new ones can appear. 

If you need any help embracing the unknown, get in touch with us today.

Cover image source: Unsplash

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