(2018-12-18) Cutler Great One-Pagers

John Cutler: Great One-Pagers. I have always been a fan of one-pagers — short, space-constrained, descriptions of a proposed product bet. A single page is something that you can put up on a wall for everyone to see. It takes between 3–6 minutes to read. (cf Amazon Meeting Memo, Experiment)

One-pagers are not meant to communicate detailed specifications, requirements, and plans.

One-pagers communicate the data, insights, and beliefs behind potential “bets”.

A good thought exercise while writing a one-pager is as follows: Would you bet $5,000 of your own money on the success of this effort?

What might we learn early on that would encourage you to increase your bet to $10,000?

One-pagers are not open-ended. They have a “definition of done”. But this “definition of done” can range from a working/tested deliverable to achieving a high-level business objective.

From experience, I think the sweet spot for one-pagers is 3–6 (range of prescriptiveness), unless, of course, you have sufficient data to show that #1 will generate the desired outcome. (1="Build exactly this", 8="Generate this long term business outcome")

For scoping, also consider the idea of independence, and work being independently valuable

In general, I recommend keeping features out of your one-pager titles and missions

One-Pager Questions

Would you bet $20,000 of your own money on the success of this effort? Why? Why not? On what terms? How would we know whether you had won/lost the bet? What might we learn early on that would encourage you to increase your bet to $40,000? Or decrease your bet to $5,000, or $0? Fill in the blanks. With this effort — in the next 6 months — there is a 95% chance we’ll generate [some outcome], a 50% chance we’ll generate [more of that outcome], and a 10% chance we’ll generate [even more of that outcome].

Dec'2020: updated checklist