The other day I made a chicken salad from scratch. Actually, it was the recipe I made from scratch, and a chicken salad was the result. You see, I had chicken, a fridge full of condiments, people to feed, and a hankering for some chicken salad. The only problem was that none of the condiments on hand matched any of the recipe classics I was used to. I did have some ideas for good substitutions, but I did not want to waste a bunch of food on mistaken culinary hunches.
What to do?
I thought about the advice I would give to a client: 1) examine your assumptions, 2) focus on the greatest risk, and 3) tackle that uncertainty before adding in any larger consequences. This is the path of a lean product manager or good entrepreneur: affordable risks lead to safe bets.
My assumption was that I could make a chicken salad that everyone would enjoy. The risk was that I would ruin it and still not have anything to feed people with. The uncertainty rested on the dressing, since the chicken was a given. The consequence I needed to separate out was the chicken itself, literally, since there was only so much to go around.
I started with a small batch of what I hypothesized would be good dressing: mayonnaise, creamy horseradish, dill pickles, capers, dried cherries, and candied pecans. Hey! Not bad! The hypothesis passed the experiment. Finally, it was time to add the chicken and mix it in. Success! Everybody was happy with lunch.
This recipe isn’t about the ingredients, it’s about the process. You could follow this recipe with totally different ingredients and also get a great dish: it’s the lean part that matters (not the chicken). The next time you face risk and uncertainty, try making Lean Chicken Salad and tell me what you come up with!
