Perception of Risk and a Rabbit hole of thoughts
So what is your riskiest assumption? That was the latest question that was put to us in our Discovery Fund Project. We are in the Define stage and therefore about to start on the path of prototyping and its many quick snappy, “cheap and cheerful” iterations.
Our starting point is to be our riskiest assumption- but what is risk to one may not be risk to another.
Knowledge: Having limited knowledge about something can make a persons view of it as being more risky than it is or less risky than reality.
Take indoor climbing for instance.
Ask someone without specific knowledge of climbing where the greatest risk to a top rope climber is and they are likely to say at the top of the wall rather than towards the bottom. This however is not the case. With an attentive belayer (the person who takes in the rope through a device as the person climbs), there is little risk of injury if you let go at the top of the wall. Even if you fall rather than let go, you may at worse bang an elbow or knee. Towards the bottom of the wall however, there is a lot more rope out (it has to go from the climber to the top of the wall and back to the ground again) and that rope is intentionally designed to stretch. There is also that big flat ground thing at the bottom to hit which wasn’t there towards the top of the wall. The result, even with an attentive belayer, is a chance of a twisted or broken ankle as a result of letting go.
Perspective: How things are framed can change the perception of risk.
Tell someone you are going to fall off and they are going to practice catching you on the rope can be quite scary to the person with the “catching “ responsibility, but a change in language use can reframe the situation in someone’s mind. Instead of “falling off” use “letting go unexpectedly” often reduces people’s anxiety of the coming task and lowers their perception of risk. (NB: Always have an experienced person backing-up if you are learning to belay.)
So back to the question, What is our riskiest assumption?
Who is “our”? Is that the Staff or the User? Is the assumption risky because of how it could impact our Users or because the staff believe it to be the least likely or the most likely thing to happen? In who’s view is the risk to be graded? Having carried out extensive research in our Discover phase, then our riskiest assumptions should not really be risky.
At the one point in this whole process when we get a hint of science involved and can write a hypothesis, I am falling down a Risky Rabbit Hole of thoughts.
