EVIDENCE BEAR
The lighter side of expensive mistakes.
An illustrated field guide to what happens when assumptions become plans, incentives stay hidden and activity gets mistaken for progress.
Each entry combines one cartoon with one operating observation. The humour is light. The organisational consequences usually are not.
EVIDENCE BEAR #1
The Roadmap
Observation
A roadmap can look incredibly precise while concealing how little the team actually knows.
The danger begins when dates and features survive after the assumptions behind them have changed.
EVIDENCE BEAR #2
Shared Risk
Observation
Many business disagreements are not really about money. They are about fairness.
People will often accept a smaller upside before they accept an arrangement where the downside feels one-sided.
EVIDENCE BEAR #3
The Investor Meeting
Observation
Fundraising discussions often drift toward improving the presentation before understanding the investment decision.
Founders experience fundraising as communication. Investors experience it as uncertainty. The useful question is what evidence would make the case believable.
EVIDENCE BEAR #4
The Perfect Candidate
Observation
Companies often try to recruit their way out of a problem they have not yet defined.
The job description becomes a list of abstract qualities because nobody can say what should be different on Monday morning.
A useful first step
Before writing the role, complete one sentence: “The problem we’re hiring this person to solve is…”
Related tool: Define the problem before designing the response →
EVIDENCE BEAR #5
The Pilot
Observation
A pilot is supposed to reduce uncertainty. But it cannot do that when nobody has agreed what problem is being tested, what success looks like, or what the customer must see.
When those decisions are missing, the pilot becomes an expensive meeting for discovering what should have been decided before it started.
Related tool: Define the decision before designing the test →
EVIDENCE BEAR #6
The Focused Roadmap
Observation
Prioritisation becomes theatre when every important request must survive.
A roadmap cannot create focus unless leadership is willing to decide what will not happen.
GO DEEPER
Field Notes
Longer observations on leadership, product decisions, fundraising and organisational learning.
Different cartoons. The same recurring operating problems.
Evidence Bear is created by Jörn Green. New observations are added as the bear encounters them.
Jörn Green 