For weeks you argued for it. Replace the old notification service, you said, and you wrote the document, answered the objections and drew the diagrams. On Monday the decision came back. Yes, go ahead, and you will lead it. You were delighted for about an hour. Since then you have been quietly terrified.
This is a very common feeling, and it often catches people by surprise. While you were arguing, the risk belonged to the people who might say no. Now it belongs to you. Every confident sentence in that document has become a promise, and you can suddenly see all the places where you might have been wrong.
Start by remembering what actually happened. Several experienced people read your proposal, poked holes in it and still said yes. They were not doing you a favour. They looked at the same uncertainty you are looking at now and decided it was worth it.
Then separate what you know from what you guessed. Go back through the document and mark the assumptions. The old service can be switched off by spring. The new one will cope with peak traffic. Pick the riskiest guess and find a way to test it in the first few weeks, while it is still cheap to change course.
Tell people about the uncertainty early. A short note saying here is what we have learned, and here is the one thing I am less sure of than I was, builds far more trust than silence followed by a surprise. Nobody expects a proposal to survive contact with reality unchanged.
Ask for help without apology. Leading the work does not mean doing all of it, or knowing all of it. Find the person who has run something similar and ask what caught them out.
And allow the plan to change. Adjusting the approach is not admitting the proposal was wrong. It is what good proposals are for. They get the work started, and then the work teaches you the rest.
Your doubt now is not a sign you should not have asked. It is a sign you understand what you asked for.
– Asael Shinder
Top comments (1)
"Your doubt now is not a sign you should not have asked" is the line people need to hear. What happens in that moment is your brain flips from pitch mode to threat mode. Before the yes, it was scanning for reasons people might say no. After the yes, it's scanning for every way you could fail, and it'll find plenty because that's what it's looking for. Nothing about you changed between Tuesday and Wednesday, just what your filter is pointed at. Testing the riskiest assumption early is smart for that reason too. It gives your brain real information instead of letting it run worst cases on loop.