[Creation Cycle] Project Hypothesis Template

Projects are expensive. Working on a project without a goal is even more expensive. This template provides a Simple Scalable System to declare target outcomes and lead effective creation cycles.

Causes of Ineffective Projects

Some common factors that lead to ineffective projects:

• Unclear project goals.
• Feature creep.
• Unclear learnings / takeaways from project (or even false takeaways with data cherrypicking).

Running Effective Project Cycles

Most of these problems can be resolved with a clear, specific project hypothesis. This gives direction and structure to a given creation cycle to keep effort on track and on the most impactful things.

• Clear hypothesis for impact.
• Clear reasoning for why we believe this is useful.
• Clear methods for proving / disproving.

I've crafted this template through hundreds of different creation cycles across organizations large and small - from systems handling trillions of requests a day to startups I launch in 72 hours. It doesn't guarantee that a project will be successful but it does ensure that the effort we put into this creation cycle leads to progress, not waste.