Externally supported recommendations, not opinions

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By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.


Reading time: 4 min

Summary: 

  • If a decision you are making affects many people I find it’s normally better to put forward an ‘externally supported recommendation’, not ‘your opinion’. 

  • Opinion: What you think the right thing to do is.

  • Externally Supported Recommendation: 

    • Your opinion can be one part, but likely should not be the only part. 

    • As much externally supported data as practical, incorporated in a positive sum way, into a recommendation. 

Trying to help your user set Vs Doing what you think

  • Levels of recommendation:

    • L1: Opinion

    • L2: Have data

    • L3: L2 + Externally agreed upon destination / Job To Be Done

    • L4: L3 + Systematic sequential path to destination / Job To Be Done AKA Externally Supported Recommendation. 

  • “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one but they think each others stink.” ― Simone Elkeles

  • You know what doesn’t stink? An Externally Supported Recommendation. 

    • I find that talking about opinions can often be negative sum debate. 

    • But that considering Externally Supported Recommendations is often positive sum discourse. 

 

Example 1: What the offsite for the company should be

  • Opinion: What you want to do. 

  • Externally Support Recommendation: 

    • It’s normally not possible to please everyone, but in this case hopefully you can please 90+% of people. 

    • Create the different segments / personas of your team. 

    • Propose a plan that you believe will please all key segments. 

    • Check with a couple of people from each segment to see if the plan is pleasing. 

Example 2: Hiring

  • Opinion: I think this person would be good

  • Externally Support Recommendation: 

    • You have a well designed ‘Job Description’ AKA Externally agreed upon destination. 

    • You looked at the traits of people who have excelled in this role in the past and why. You have looked at the traits of people who haven’t excelled in the past and why. AKA understand a systematic sequential past to the destination. 

    • Then you design an interview process around trying to discover these traits and put forward an ‘externally supported recommendation’ of what to do based on the outcomes. 

Example 3: Year 12 Textbook Questions

  • We know the final destination is the Year 12 exam. 

  • Opinion: What you think are the best questions. 

  • Externally Support Recommendation: 

    • Understand at high resolution what the destination is, AKA the exam questions are. 

    • One strategy to understand the destination at high resolution is to systematically break down past exam questions into their components (in Edrolo speak ‘genome’). Then build a systematic sequential path to the destination. 

Example 4: What order the content of a resource should be

  • Opinion: The order you would teach if you this was your class

  • Externally Support Recommendation = (1. Find all major resources and map out the order they teach the content + 2.1 Break the teacher body into personas that ideally represent 80%+ of teacher * 2.2 Speak to enough teachers from each personas to get a solid understanding of the different sequences) * 3. Munge these together

Example 5: Optimal utopia vs Optimal first step

  • Opinion: What you think is the best proposal for improving education. 

  • Externally Support Recommendation: 

    • What matters normally is the quantum of actualised improvement to education (not how much improvement would happen if everyone did everything exactly as you envisage). They say progress happens one step at a time. Normally this means that the best way to improve education is to figure out the optimal next step from where things are at (not the optimal utopia). 

    • One strategy to figure out the optimal first step is to speak to people externally, break the user set into personas, understand what each persona is doing now and then propose next steps and get their feedback. 

If you only take away one thing

  • If you are trying to make a decision that affects more than just yourself, as almost all decisions in a job do, then I’ve found it’s normally much better to put forward an ‘externally supported recommendation’, not ‘your opinion’. 

  • Doing the work to build an ‘externally supported recommendation’ can be tough, but done well I find it much fun!