Is this situation familiar? you are working on an important project and somebody makes a suggestion that is so crazy that you want to say “Sure, you can do that. You can do a lot of things. You can roll up a wad of 100 dollar bills and put them up your ass and light them on fire, but that’s gonna be pretty expensive and a pain in the ass.” Instead you stammer a meek “What a novel idea” (at least if you are British).
The right way to approach any idea is of course with an open mind and engage in it. Sometimes it is just a matter of understanding the intention behind. Sometimes, there is an insight buried somewhere deep down. Sometimes, you need to consider it, no matter how ridiculous. That’s why you should use the Interrogate, Reflect, Chose (IRC) formula.
Interrogate
It is important to ask curious questions about the suggestion. Did you understand exactly what the suggestion was? Try to repeat the suggestion to make sure that you got it right. That is the first test to see if it is just a misunderstanding. Sometimes repeating the suggestion in other words can also make it clear that it sounds unrealistic. For example: “so you want to use a public blockchain as a database for all your confidential research data?”
Then make clear the assumptions that were made and thus not stated explicitly. Try to understand what assumptions you put into the suggestion yourself first. Confirm whether they are correct. Then analyze the suggestion and clarify the assumptions that need to be true for it to make sense.
Reflect
Once the understanding of the suggestion is validated the suggestion should be put into context. The first thing is to compare it to reality. Is it even realistic? Can you find evidence that it is or is not? That can also sometimes by itself reveal its shortcomings. I remember once a suggestion to use pop up boxes in email marketing. A quick reality check quickly showed that the email message format does not allow for pop ups (as RFC 3522 will tell you).
Clarify the tradeoffs the suggestion implies. If someone suggests just to create a new environment or a new instance of an application, that might seem like a good idea, but it is necessary to clarify that this means additional cost, maintenance and duplication of data and functionality.
Understand the principles that guide the decision. Once the principles are understood and agreed it is easier to compare different suggestions. Often the principles are fairly clear and easy to create consensus around. In the reflection stage we want to understand how the different suggestions fit with the principles we want to follow.
Choose
Finally the choice is made when we have understood the suggestion and the assumptions that underpin it. We have validated that it is realistic and not just a pie in the sky. The tradeoffs are clear and we know how they fit the principles.
This is where we want to compare to other causes of action. It is standard to compare it to a do nothing scenario just to understand why we are doing anything at all. That should be considered as a minimum. Other options can be existing suggestions or standard courses of action. This is where creativity comes in.
Comparing solution options should single out the most important aspects of the solutions under consideration. This will also take a bit of analysis and understanding of the problem area.
It is always good to document these solutions so as to be able to explain at a later point to others or yourself why this decision was made.
So next time you hear a crazy suggestion, count to three think IRC and Interrogate to make sure you understood the suggestion and the assumptions, Reflect on whether this is feasible, what tradeoffs are made and what principles should guide the decision, and finally help chose based on a number of solution options held against important aspects for the problem area guided by principles.
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