Information Management for Organizational Effectiveness
Monday, 17 Nov 2025 | Success, failure and uncertainty
Consider this video in terms of design and uncertainty.
Many important problems involve decision making under uncertainty -
that is, choosing actions based on often imperfect observations, with unknown outcomes.
Read these articles to prepare yourself for some discussion
I'm not going to argue that failure per se is a good thing. Far from it: It can waste money,
destroy morale, infuriate customers, damage reputations, harm careers, and sometimes lead to
tragedy. But failure is inevitable in uncertain environments, and, if managed well, it can be a
very useful thing.
Failing by Design by Rita McGrath in The Harvard Business Review, April 2011
Uncertainty and risk are not the same thing.
Whereas uncertainty deals with possible outcomes that are unknown, risk is a certain type of uncertainty that involves the real possibility of loss.
Risks can be more comprehensively accounted for than uncertainty.
Uncertainty is a state of having limited knowledge of current conditions or future outcomes.
It is a major component of risk, which involves the likelihood and scale of negative consequences.
Managers often deal with uncertainty in their work; to minimize the risk that their decisions will lead to undesired outcomes, they must develop the skills and judgment necessary for reducing this uncertainty.
Managing uncertainty and risk also involves mitigating or even removing things that inhibit effective decision-making or adversely affect performance.
One cause of uncertainty is proximity: things that are about to happen are easier to estimate than those further out in the future.
One approach to dealing with uncertainty is to put off decisions until data become more accessible and reliable.
Of course, delaying some decisions can bring its own set of risks, especially when the potential negative consequences of waiting are great.
You don't have to read these unless you wish to ...
... but they might come up in discussion
"The bias to believe and confirm is stronger than the bias to doubt and disconfirm,”
he wrote, “which is why false beliefs are difficult to correct. Confirmation bias is the most significant of the cognitive biases.
Uncertainty deals with possible outcomes that are unknown,
risk is a certain type of uncertainty that involves the real possibility of loss.
Something else
Jake Shimabukuro
Jake became an international sensation in 2006 when a YouTube video of him playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps in Central Park -
without his knowledge - became one of the very first viral videos on that site with millions of views.
Above the Basement
