Strategies for making impossible decisions
summary
Argues that impossible technical or product choices become manageable by planning to be wrong and iterating with cheap experiments rather than perfect upfront designs. Recommends writing the problem down, naming a DRI to force decisions, making multiple small bets like walking skeletons or focused prototypes, gating changes with feature flags (mentions LaunchDarkly), and aiming for rapid feedback cycles or four-week feedback loops to decide whether to continue, pivot, or stop. Watch if you want concrete tactics and failure modes.
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chapters (32)
- 0:00Intro
- 2:06Surprises
- 2:57Ambiguity
- 3:46Longer time horizons
- 4:09Stickier decisions
- 4:50Design well upfront
- 5:01Plan ahead
- 5:16Liebig ambition
- 6:15Lean Startup
- 6:56The Plan
- 7:38Assumptions
- 8:46Write it down
- 9:47Prepare for hard choices
- 10:52Analysis paralysis
- 11:31Confidence
- 12:19Outcome
- 14:03Chess
- 15:07Small bets
- 16:16Diversification
- 17:02Walking skeletons
- 17:25Prototypes
- 17:56Feature toggle
- 18:28Focus on small bets
- 19:09Completing the loop
- 19:24Crossing a river
- 20:15Playing an iterated game
- 20:33Learning more precisely
- 21:14Moonshots
- 22:03US Space Program
- 23:10Roof Shots
- 23:55The Next Step
- 24:41Planning
