

Questorming: exploring the unknown unknowns - swombat
http://swombat.com/2012/1/2/questorming

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keeptrying
Your not exploring unknown unknowns - your identifying the labels that you
don't understand in the context of a project. Still a very useful methid to
chart out what u know and what u don't know.

The only real way to learn about unknown unknowns other than smacking into
them hard is to talk to someone in tbd field. It's the fastest most efficient
way.

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swombat
Well, I'd argue that finding out the limits of what you know is a good step
towards turning unknown unknowns into known unknowns...

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keeptrying
One really doesn't have anything to do with the other but I wont belabour the
point.

Relying on linguistic mapping of previously known relationships is a poor
system for discovering unknown unknowns. talking to someone in that space is
orders of magnitudes more efficient.

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swombat
When such a person is available... sure. But when it's a unique subject (e.g.
a startup's business model) for which there is no expert other than yourself,
mapping your own knowledge of the topic and finding leverage points to expand
it is extremely useful.

The book example is just an example. There are lots of materials out there
about writing books, so using Questorming to explore this is indeed a waste of
time, but it provides a useful example.

~~~
keeptrying
The more I think about this more I dislike the idea of sitting around and
thinking in a room.

To really figure out unknown unknowns for a business model, you should be
talking to the people who are already in the market, customers or reading
trade literature.

Sitting around in a room alone doing this is probably a just a huge waste of
time.

