Connections - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 70

Figure 3-15. The spork of innovation.
Either way, there are three acts before the act that commits. It's okay if the iffiness is visible.
Agile and Beta made it safe to experiment in public. The thing to be aware of is irrevocable, a
word that means you can't go back. In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb promotes “optionality” as a
way to benefit from the positive side of uncertainty. lxxxv It's best to keep our options open, since
information and intelligence are often no match for wait and see. Anyone who's watched House
has seen applied optionality in the sequence of symptom-treatment-diagnosis; it's a strategy
Karl Weick prescribes.
When physicians make a formal diagnosis under time pressure, their rush to label the disease, begin
treatment, and achieve closure leads them to overlook and then forget symptoms that don't fit the dia-
gnosis. This encourages more confidence than may be warranted…A hunch held lightly (that is, without
commitment) is a direction to be followed, not a decision to be defended. l xxxvi
The act of labeling merits attention in all the work we do. Like maps, words are traps. We must
speak carefully since we think what we say. The order of operations makes a difference; that's
why process is key. Recently, I worked on a prototyping project in which we purposefully cre-
ated wireframes and design comps in parallel. In weekly reviews, we'd flip back and forth, at
times asking questions we'd already asked.
Interestingly, the answers sometimes changed. When I first suggested we merge Save Search
and Save/Share Results, our client defended their existence as separate features. But a week
later, we revisited the same interface, and once again I made the case for convergence. A single
Save/Share menu button makes it impossible to choose the wrong option and helps users to
learn about related features. And this time our client agreed. I'd had time to clarify my argu-
ment. Our client had time to get used to the idea. Also, it was a less hectic meeting, and the
group was receptive to change. This collaboration took time and was messy. We'd pick a road in
the fork only to loop back around. But this process improved quality enormously. By creating a
safe space-time in which actions and decisions aren't binding, we defused self-justification for a
while.