“If we get this wrong, we all go home.”

In every new project or concept that we explore, there are a lot of assumptions and cognitive leaps that you have to make in order to foresee a world that is better with your new idea in place.

We make these leaps because we are of the brand of people that can see opportunity where others can’t. It’s likely equal parts gift and curse.

Here’s where things get tricky: the new idea and all of it’s glory has a few assumptions baked in, we want to move quickly, but prudently. There are so many things to do! Where do we start? Where do we stop?

What do we need to get right, or else we all pack up and go home?This is a perfect time to use the Criticality Axis.

We place items that we need to test on an axis balancing the critical nature of the test as compared to the time it takes to test it. This allows us to visually plot out of areas of risk and creates a backlog of concepts that are important for us to exist.

In this example, I had in mind a new type of food truck concept, and plotted some of the things that are important to test in order to be able to move forward and succeed. Things like zoning regulations that allow for this food category to be sold in public, pricing, a menu that makes sense to customers, events they will be able to sell products, and finally activities that lead to hype that allows you to go from getting by to thriving.

This is all plotted on an axis, and naturally things that fall on the top left are key to test immediately, but to budget some time for activities that take a longer lead time to test.

If you know somebody who has a new concept and needs structure around how they move forward, share this link with them. They will thank you when they rake in their first million.