How to Present Ideas So That Your Client Will Listen
summary
Argues that persuading clients requires naming risks and showing how ideas can fail, not just prettier visuals. Advocates pre-mortem exercises and a formal hypothesis-driven "assignment" that states beliefs, data, predicted impact and explicit failure modes. Uses Spotify’s hamburger-menu rollout — many tests, measurable metric shifts — as a concrete example, and cites Philip Tetlock’s forecasting work (hedgehogs vs foxes) to justify seeking disconfirming evidence. Recommends a slide deck to document beliefs and the small experiments that will prove whether each gamble works.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:46Fear of Failure
- 1:26Introduction
- 3:16Coin Flipping
- 8:54The Winner Might Not Know
- 10:29How Did They Get There
- 10:56True Things
- 14:01Managing Risk
- 14:17Poor Decisions
- 14:41Market Share
- 18:47Is there a proven way
- 20:30The hedgehogs
- 21:44foxes and good
- 24:04premortem
- 25:37hypothesis driven design
- 27:14we believe
- 29:20all ideas welcome
- 30:14devils advocate
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