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Latest revision as of 11:36, 1 September 2025
Enterprise Design Patterns | Practice Patterns
#21: Hypotheses and Validation
"The righter you do the wrong thing, the wronger you get"
- Russell Ackoff
Related Patterns:
#19: Evidence, #27: Unintended Consequences, #34: Tangible Futures
You need to decide which options to explore and pursue in greater depth.
In this context:
Your work involves making many design decisions with a web of trade-offs between them. There is no single optimal solution, but there are many preferences and opinions. You need a transparent, evidence-based way to determine which options to take forward, while eliminating others.
Therefore:
You facilitate an open exploration of the problem space. You clarify what a good outcome means for your change initiative. You formulate multiple options as alternative hypotheses and validate each option against success criteria that define a good outcome for your co-creators and you. Such validation may include:
- Testing a prototype or scenario by simulating its behaviour with prospective users;
- Checking alignment with strategic goals, design principles or desired impact;
- Checking compliance with requirements, standards, or laws;
- Simulating a systems' behaviour using dynamic modelling software;
- Using feedback from internal or external stakeholders.
You make sure to involve your co-creators in the criteria definition and the validation work. You share the results and are transparent about design decisions and why options are eliminated.
Consequently:
You transform the usually top-down or committee-driven decision-making process into an evidence-based approach with transparent criteria. This maximises your chances of producing a successful design. This also allows you to course correct as you go along, reducing the risk of taking your work too far into a wrong direction.