The Squirrel Test

“Wouldn’t it be cool if…”

We’ve all heard it before and its close friends “how easy would it be…” and “couldn’t we just..”. These lead-ins are signs we might momentarily lose sight of our strategy for a shiny distraction (scope creep or a “squirrel” to my friends in software).

via GIPHY

Let’s rephrase our statement so we can tell if this is a great new idea or a squirrel in disguise:

“Wouldn’t it be cool if…” turns into “Wouldn’t we increase our sales if…”

“How easy would it be…” turns into “How much cost/time would we save if…”

“Couldn’t we just…” turns into “Our customers would never leave if…”

Try this phrase substitution and pitch it to yourself in a mirror. If you can take yourself seriously listening to it, your idea just passed The Squirrel Test!

Further reading

• Find out how you get to a real customer problem by finding The “project cartoon” root cause
• If you’re working on new products check out how to Prioritize a backlog like an entrepreneur
• Want to keep the conversation going? Reach out on LinkedIn