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How to do Discovery and Delivery at the same time … with Pivot Triggers
Introducing a simple intervention that helps you dodge sunk cost bias as you escape from zombie initiatives
A teeny aside before we dive in: I’ve presented Pivot Triggers in the context of digital product teams. But you can apply the idea to any project you’re doing, with others or by yourself.
If you give this a try, or you already do anything similar, hit reply and tell me – I’d love to hear about your experiences as I keep developing this.Originally published at tomkerwin.com
Imagine. You have to break some news to your team. Picture their little faces all stacked up in the video call software as you say:
“Thanks for all your hard work over the past 8 months. I’m afraid this initiative didn’t work out how we hoped and we’re cancelling it. All your hard work … it’s going in the bin.”
What? Nobody would really say this, would they? Not outright. Not like that.
And yet this kind of situation — ideas killed too late, time and effort wasted — it happens all the time.
Before we get into how to avoid it, let’s first rewind to the beginning of those 8 months and see how and why this fate came to be …
The beginning of most initiatives is all energy and positivity:
“This is a clear winner! This is The Thing that’ll give us the breakthrough we need!”
And off you all march.
But as time goes on, you start to sense cracks, problems and obstacles. Momentum dwindles. The Thing is taking longer to finish than anyone hoped, and it’s turning into a bit of a grind. And you start to feel a creeping uncertainty. Maybe … just maybe … this initiative isn’t as valuable as we thought.
This creeping uncertainty is a signal that the initiative is becoming a zombie initiative.
But by the time that signal is alarming enough to prod you into reconsidering, it’s too late. You’re trapped by sunk cost bias. The business has put money and clout behind the initiative and everyone’s worked freakin’ hard. It’s too painful to admit that it might not be The Thing…
