I am going to disagree with the author here, while the end result might have been successful for the author, the though process to get there was flawed. Ironica

I am going to disagree with the author here, while the end result might have been successful for the author, the though process to get there was flawed. Ironically, the concept he talks about is right on the money, but with incorrect conclusions. In the example he brings up, that people with subject matter expertise predict events with more accuracy (Foxes) than those who make confident forecasters (Hedgehogs). The thing is that the questions/predictions are all around specific/measurable outcomes (I believe that $X will happen if $Y, I believe that $X will happen due to $Z). Asking someone "What do you think of Iraq?" will yield significantly different answers than "What predictions do you have with regards to Iraq over the next 5 years?". I have noticed one common thing, which will cause scope creep in projects with almost 100% certainty: The shitty question. In my mind a shitty question when building software can be a number of things: - Something outside someone's subject matter expertise - Open ended - Without timeframes - No context I would argue that the problem is not that people are getting feedback from Hedgehogs/confident forecasters and that they should discount/ignore their advice. The problem is people keep asking shitty questions, or questions outside the Foxes scope of expertise. I think that product/engineers actually need to be asking more questions of people with experience, not less, but they need to be good questions. This is a skill that requires more effort than most people think. Sure, there are Hedgehogs/people who blab on about the newest tech, but not having a feedback loop is how you get disconnects between your users and the product. I have seen this play out in so many different ways and its amazing how quickly a product team can become disconnected from reality, even in a small company.