A gutful of data

In any project management scenario you should always favour observable data over gut instinct.

If you have data, go with what the data says. If you don’t have data, get some.

And if you cannot get any data, then it is time to go with your gut.

But data trumps guts, every time.

Whether our gut instinct turns out to be right or wrong, we rarely, if ever, can say why the outcome happened the way it did.

“I had a misgiving.”

“Something felt off.”

“Everything feels good today.”

If you have to go with your gut, start listing out, on a whiteboard or notepad, all your misgivings, and all of your positive feelings.

The act of documenting and making concrete your “gut instinct” is the beginnings of observable data, and also gives you several starting points of what observable data needs to be collected.