Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Swimming With Stakeholders
Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting, Inc., a global consulting enterprise.
Project teams need a well-rounded, measurable definition of success that drives the decisions and behaviors of everyone involved. It requires 'swimming in the customer fishbowl’ to truly understand their wants and needs. But beware the 'riptide effect’ and take a cool-headed step back to maintain perspective when things get choppy.
This is the second in a series of excerpts from the author’s new book Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls Every Project Faces (© Kimberly Wiefling 2007).
More than 50 percent of all new products fail to meet their goals because they fail to meet the needs of the target customers and because they are released with unacceptable quality issues. Depending on the industry, between 60 percent and 90 percent of all new products fail to meet customer expectations. Do the math. The world is full of gizmos and gadgets that people don’t want, don’t need, and certainly don’t want to pay for. Buoyed by hopelessly optimistic marketing revenue projections that are met less than 1 time out of 100, they get to market before anyone finds out just how off the mark they are. Clunky user interfaces, products that fail to perform as promised, or annoying bugs in the released product create doubt as to whether the designer ever used the product, let alone talked with a real customer. All too …
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"Less is only more where more is no good" - Frank Lloyd Wright |