Be Hypothesis Driven, Not Idea Led
Think in terms of hypotheses, not ideas. Being idea driven leads to false facts - when opinions are accepted as reality due to a hypothesis not being proven or disproven with data.
Introduction
A hypothesis is a prediction or theory about what your research may find. It is a tentative answer to a research question that is yet to be tested.
Hypothesis statements are formulated on existing knowledge or theories – they are not a guess. A hypothesis must be specific, clear, testable and falsifiable – a hypothesis must be able to be proven wrong.
Many people in business have lots of interesting theories about their customers, market conditions and what their business could do to improve.
The challenge is that these theories, at some point, just become accepted as organisational reality. This can lead to false facts – when business hypotheses have not actually been proven or disproven with data.
If you’re not hypothesis driven, you’re being led by opinion and gut feel. Organisational hypotheses should be tested by a scientific process of experimentation to separate the signal from the noise.
What is a hypothesis?
A hypothesis states your predictions about what your investigation or experiment will find. It is a tentative answer, that has not yet been tested.
For some research, you might have to write several hypotheses that address different aspects of your research question.
Your initial hypothesis is generally based on limited data. That’s OK, as it’s only the beginning of a line of inquiry that will either prove, disprove or improve the hypothesis based on data and facts.
“A hypothesis is not just a guess — it should be based on existing theories and knowledge”
It also has to be testable, which means you can support or refute it through scientific research methods (such as experiments, observations and statistical analysis of data).
Your hypothesis must be able to be proven wrong.
“No amount of experimentation can prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong” – Albert Einstein
Example - Increase traffic to your company website
When you were sitting in that meeting and were asked … “What is your perspective?”, “What do you think will happen?” or “What are your thoughts?” … you were invariably being asked for your hypothesis on how to solve the problem.
When these types of questions are left unanswered by data and facts, they’re only opinions and assumptions.
If you want to be more successful at business problem solving, you need to be able to gather data to prove or disprove your hypothesis.
Let’s go over an example.
You’ve been tasked with increasing traffic to your company website to increase customer acquisition.
You’ve got the project team together, ran an ideation session to generate ideas to solve the problem. As often happens, there are way too many ideas, and you can’t implement all of them.
You now need to narrow your focus, understanding which of the 10 ideas could potentially have the biggest impact.
STEP #1
Prioritise the ideas based on how much impact you hypothesise each idea will create.
STEP #2
Gather data and facts to prove or disprove your hypothesis.
Ways that you could gather data to validate your hypothesis include:
- Research reports
- Expert podcasts
- Talk to digital agencies / service providers
- Blog posts
- Books
- Talk to industry professionals
- You Tube etc.
While there are many different ways to validate your hypothesis, each of the above data sources carries a different level of evidence strength. Some data sources hold a higher level of credibility and evidence strength, relative to others.
Running experiments to understand how each of the ideas will actually perform will always carry a higher weighting than reading content on the web.
Talking to an industry insider will obviously carry less weight as this person is providing information based on their personal experiences and beliefs.
Remember, data goes stale very quickly. It’s dangerous to make your business decisions based on data from other companies, in other geographies, in other time periods.
Always endeavour to gather your own relevant, high-quality data.
“I find that most people do not take this critical step in validating a hypothesis. Instead, they apply bad logic to many important decisions. An idea pops into their head, and then somehow it just becomes a fact” – Joe Newsam
Why is it important to be hypothesis driven?
All major developments in the history of humanity have been brought about through a highly disciplined process of scientific experimentation and empirical research.
Thomas Edison the lightbulb, Benjamin Franklin with bifocal lenses and Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin.
None of these discoveries would have been made if it were not for the scientific method.
Yet, in many organisations, poor reasoning and judgement are the norm.
“Organisational narratives are created and accepted without ever being questioned or validated”
Opinions and personal beliefs are packaged up as facts – with these hypotheses never proved or disproved.
In the same way that good decision-making is compounding over time, removing current obstacles and future problems, bad decision-making is compounding too.
“When you’re only ever making strategic decisions based on intuition and gut feel, there’s no organisational learning occurring”
How do you ever know if you were right or wrong if you never validate any of your hypotheses?
How do you become hypothesis driven?
You start by validating your hypothesis, to prove or disprove your line of thinking.
Always look to establish a sound fact base through data, observation, information and analysis.
Resist the urge of turning ideas and opinions into facts - most people in business tend to be idea driven.
All sorts of weird and wonderful theories abound in organisations. Somewhere along the line, these opinions and beliefs are turned into false facts, without any level of validation occurring to prove or disprove the hypothesis.
Instead of saying “our customers don’t care about pricing”, run experiments to understand the impacts of increasing or decreasing price on customer demand. Customers always care about price
Instead of saying “we’re a market-leading, trusted brand”, understand why this should be true. Talk to your customers. Maybe you’re just no worse than your competitors and customers have a low-level of motivation to switch a commodity product
Instead of saying “we need to build that feature because that’s what customers want”, take the time to engage with customers to understand what problem they’re trying to solve. The solution may well be something completely different from what your customers think they want or need
It’s not possible to completely divorce your intuition and gut feel from decision-making.
It’s just that we don’t want to lead with our fast, intuitive thinking processes and heuristics when making important, strategic decisions.
Sensing and feeling is a key component of the decision-making process and will always inform our decisions.
Try to delay intuition and gut feel until a sound reasoning and critical thinking process has been achieved, sourcing relevant data, information and facts to confirm or reject hypotheses.
Conclusion
Think in terms of hypotheses, not ideas.
Being idea driven can lead to false facts – when business hypotheses have not actually been proven or disproven with data.
In any organisation, there are many legacy myths and theories that are perpetuated through the ages. These theories often remain unchecked, becoming part of the fabric and DNA of an organisation.
When legacy thinking is not validated it can have significant downside for an organisation, resulting in poor strategic decision-making.
Reframe your thinking. Think in terms of hypotheses to solve business problems more effectively.
A hypothesis is a working theory about what your line of inquiry may find – it is specific, clear and testable. A hypothesis can be proved, disproved or further refined.
Run experiments, gather data and conduct observation to establish a fact-base to test and validate your hypotheses.
References:
Ash Maurya Joe Newsam Ash Maurya
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