Dealing with uncertainty in the early discovery phase of a product
A story about embracing uncertainty, which is essential in any innovation process that not only doesn’t avoid it but requires it. A story about the rising north star of intuition. Narrated through a Gestalt therapy perspective.
After a couple of years of active blogging (hah, I would like to think so, to be honest primarily passive), I can say that there is something special in the EOY times, with winter slowly ascending, that I feel inspired to sit down and put a few words together in what eventually will become a story.
This is my reflection on the last couple of months' work, mostly in (UX) Research, in what can be identified as an early discovery phase of a Product. In our company, I had the opportunity to work internally on such a complex Product, with such a level of uncertainty that it became an object of its own in need of some attention.
I will try to explain it through the very process of Gestalt therapy (as someone who is aspiring into this field as well (: ) which argues that ultimately change in oneself personality can be achieved by being present, raising one’s awareness, and the moment when we are in contact. But I’ll start before that: in the field, our surroundings, and what we have as resources when we start working with the ultimately complex yet undiscovered product.
The field of uncertainty
Our field of uncertainty was huge and included many areas. To make it more tangible, the problem “landed” to us from management and it was so broad that we needed some time until we figure out that what we were actually doing is “research before research”.
What helped us critically in this phase is focusing on the context in the way of trying to figure out what is the main problem and where would it potentially sit. If you would like to see it from the therapist's perspective, it is the same thing as when 2 clients come to the same therapist for anxiety. The reason why they came, is very likely to be very different depending on their own experience/environment/field.
When you are faced with a lot of uncertainty in the discovery phase, it is always helpful to stick to the context rather often, so you avoid feeling overwhelmed. Sticking to the context helps in unraveling patterns in your data sooner than dwelling around in discovering the ultimate truth. Our context included many different portfolios and business domains. So what we tried to do is to refine the problem and its meaning by “determining the relationship between the thing we’re focusing on (in gestalt we call this the figure) and the context it occurs within (in gestalt we call this the ground)”. It is not as easy as it sounds, but ultimately it was a way to set ourselves in a position where we can mobilize and make the first move toward validating the Problem hypothesis. By nature, we are always aware of the impact each phase in the process had, so we tried to go over the discovery phase couple of times until we were sure it is the right direction for our problem. This helped us broaden the context as it can get too narrow once you start sticking to the discovered patterns.
A contact with uncertainty
Contact as defined in Gestalt therapy “refers to a constant process rather than a specific state of being. At every moment of our lives, we are involved in the process of making contact with reality in some way. That can be other people, our environment, some aspect of ourselves.”
This contact is real and in terms of our topic, it is with your data. It is a process, there are peaks but ultimately it lasts and that is what needs to be acknowledged to move forward. On the other hand, contact is also tangible, so we needed to layout it out there on the canvas (in Miro).
Not only that we had a decent amount of data, but it was very complex and diverse so we thought, we need to synthesize this in some way. And because of that in the synthesis phase, we couldn’t rely solely on known methods, like e.g. qualitative thematic analysis as we needed to reflect uncertainty in known processes and it felt difficult to do so. So what we did instead was “inventing” techniques which I would like to call visualizations including a lot of circles, lines, dots, and rectangles just to map out the complexity and take it outside of our heads. And when you start putting things out like that, things evolve on their own. It was like bridge after bridge that ultimately we refined our views and reached an alignment.
If I need to be completely honest, the 2nd most important thing needed in working with a product in the very early discovery phase is that it requires a lot of “sinking in”. What I discovered is that when you deal with a lot of complex problems you need at some point to accept that as a UX Researcher you won’t be able to connect each dot or line. And you need some sinking in for this revelation too. At some point, after a lot of “letting it sink in” you reach a point where the contact happens and you have the ultimate “aha”, you’ve found “the insight”.
After then suddenly the infamous “aha” vanishes and you have left again in the void, but this time it is a fertile void.
The Fertile void
This is a good place. Or what we tended to repeat to ourselves over and over again. Once we reached some point of discovery we would end up in the void once again wondering where to discover next. This time the good thing was that it was a fertile void. This is the very best thing in Gestalt therapy because it is the place where the very next logical and intuitive thing pops up to be solved and looked into. Why? Because the time for it has naturally come. That is the thing in the journey when you start seeing shapes and assume it is a dot when it appears to be a star, your North star. While many directions can be taken usually the North star appears as one has processed so much data that it is evident it is there, in the very right next direction.
Final words
The level of uncertainty depends on the product itself and the stage it is in. I believe it is an integral part of any innovation process as things are constantly changing and uncertainty has become somehow the sole postulate that remains certain. If dealing with uncertainty can be summarised in a few sentences, it can sound like this:
- When it becomes overwhelming, you most probably need to take your mind off it and engage with something completely different, and let it sink in.
- Even if no amount of sinking in is enough sometimes, acknowledge the fact that it will remain uncertain to some degree. Our goal as Researchers is never to remove it completely but to become aware of it and acknowledge its presence, making sure we’ve used processes in a way to reduce huge biases.
- Rely on any visualizations that might help you narrow down the complexity of your data and move you further. Map your thoughts on the canvas.
- Embrace your intuition, because if you feel something really points to the North star then probably it is the right path to follow. Since you are the one who has been involved in the process and has complied all that data with their mind, thinking and soul.
Final words. Big thanks to my colleague and friend Julia, with whom I had the privilege to work together on this product, and learn a lot.
