Managing uncertainty in software product development.
Research shows that 60% of new products fail and 64% of the product features we develop are rarely or never used. This is an enormous waste of time, effort and money.
So why does this happen? The answer is that there is far more uncertainty about the user's problem and the technical solution than people think there is when they build a business case to fund a project.
The management uncertainty model
When we are developing a new product or new software there is always a lot of uncertainty about the problem to be solved and the right way to solve it. Problem uncertainty is made up of uncertainty about customer, user and clients problems and a complex, uncertain and changing environment. Solution uncertainty is made up of uncertainty about how to design and build a complex solution combined with uncertainty about how much time and effort it will take.
When you look at uncertainty this way, you get four different problem spaces, as shown below.
