Two competing truths:
1 - It's essential to validate risk for your business
2 - You don't have enough time to validate everything
I used to think we needed to use data as much as possible. I always feel it’s necessary to do research first. But I realize that even after we do any user observation, there's always some ambiguity, and we will never be able to eliminate all of this unknown.
Jeff Bezos pointed out we don't always have enough data to be sure about the decisions. "All of my best decisions in life and business have been made with intuitions, heart, guts," he added. [1]
Tim cook shared a similar sentiment. His decision to leave a corporate job and join Apple was not something he could analyze, "It wasn't a decision that you could kind of sit down and do an engineering analysis saying here are the pluses and here the minuses." He said that analysis would lead Tim to stay in the corporate job—following the conventional wisdom.
Remember the two competing truths.
You need both—intuition and data. Find this sweet spot. Using only intuition is like gambling. Over relying on data is unrealistic.
P.S. Lately, I have been enjoying the Internal Tech Emails
P.S.S. I think about onboarding design