A number of these were lurking in the back of our minds as potential issues (and in particular, they were raised by people who we talked to), but we didn’t see them as decisive, and were still thinking in terms of there being a reasonable probability that we should continue until a few weeks ago.
I think that the main indicator ahead of time was that we strained to think of ways to disseminate our content. We were hoping that we would come up with ideas over time, or that opportunities would emerge organically as we explored, but it was concerning that we didn’t have a clear plan of action.
I think that all of the reasons listed above are largely related to our not having gained more traction. If we had gotten more traction, we would have been more optimistic about getting funding, less inclined to think that developing technologies might be more promising, and wouldn’t have needed to let the project brew in the background to get a better idea of its potential.
The process of our coming to our conclusion was gradual, based partially on indicators such as web traffic and the flow of incoming advisees, and partially based on conversations with people in related areas who generally expressed the view that what we were trying to do is very hard.
How many of these reasons did you predict in your premortem?
Good question!
A number of these were lurking in the back of our minds as potential issues (and in particular, they were raised by people who we talked to), but we didn’t see them as decisive, and were still thinking in terms of there being a reasonable probability that we should continue until a few weeks ago.
I think that the main indicator ahead of time was that we strained to think of ways to disseminate our content. We were hoping that we would come up with ideas over time, or that opportunities would emerge organically as we explored, but it was concerning that we didn’t have a clear plan of action.
I think that all of the reasons listed above are largely related to our not having gained more traction. If we had gotten more traction, we would have been more optimistic about getting funding, less inclined to think that developing technologies might be more promising, and wouldn’t have needed to let the project brew in the background to get a better idea of its potential.
The process of our coming to our conclusion was gradual, based partially on indicators such as web traffic and the flow of incoming advisees, and partially based on conversations with people in related areas who generally expressed the view that what we were trying to do is very hard.