Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We are almost always uncertain. That is why we should plan key decision points.

“We knew what were were doing, right?” asked one of the decision makers after everything collapsed.

“Well, it sounded good when we started,” replied another one of the decision makers after everything collapsed.

No, sorry, we didn’t know what we were doing. We were uncertain. We had pretty good information; we had the best intentions, but there were things we didn’t know at the time.

That is normal.

How do we live with the normal uncertainties? Simple. (Easy? No. Simple. Yes.) We set points in time where we stop, think, look at new information, and decide. Some people call these decision points or key decision points. One place I worked abbreviated these KDPs and have a standard set of them: KDP-A, KDP-B, etc.

The use of these decision points is a candid admission of uncertainty. We will start now. We will spend this much of our resources in the next 30 days. We will stop at that point, consider new information, and decide if we go on to the next decision point. That next decision point has the similar limitations on resources.

This may be called conservative. It may be called prudent. I call it realistic. I recommend the practice.