Evidence based practice

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle

Obviously our product will be a success and we will make a lot of money” or will we?

Faced with the task of gathering evidence to compile our market research reports I am confronted with a sobering truth…just because an idea may seem “obvious” to succeed and we wholly believe that it will succeed it does not mean that people will like it. It may in fact be a complete blunder. (On the bright side we will learn good lessons).

One may say risk is a chance that we have to take in business, however I learnt that risk does not have to be so risky. Through gathering relevant evidence from your target market and adjusting your plans as you progress you can come up with a product/service rooted in sound evidence and that has a better chance of success than just thumb sucking it.

So my point of the day is - we all have different perceptions of what is obvious. Just like it is said that common sense is not common to all of us, our perceptions of what is obvious is not common to us all. Thus the best way to address a problem with a solution is to gather evidence from those who face the problem – ASK. Who knows they might steer you in a direction that you have not even considered and open up new possibilities for you. However, that said, any new idea holds risk all we can really do is try and mitigate the risk.

Food for thought:

As one of my lecturers said this past week, you cannot state anything more than that which the evidence you have allows you to.