Right-Sizing Rigor

One pattern I keep running into: rigor applied where it isn’t needed.

I saw this a lot in financial services and healthcare, where rigor often isn’t optional. When livelihoods or lives are on the line, you need processes that reduce risk, ensure compliance, and protect quality.

But problems arise when that same level of scrutiny gets applied to decisions that don’t carry the same stakes.

I’ve watched reversible decisions (A/B tests, landing page tweaks, small feature experiments) go through the same exhaustive review process as the decisions with clinical or financial consequences. The result: slower teams, fewer experiments, prototypes polished before anyone knows if they’re valuable.

Discernment isn’t just knowing what good looks like. It’s knowing when the stakes warrant rigor and when speed is the safer strategy.

Life-or-death decision? Maximum rigor. Simple A/B question? Lightweight prototype, fast iteration, just enough fidelity to learn.

This sounds obvious, but for organizations where rigor is central to operations, calibrating it to different contexts is one of the hardest organizational challenges.

Originally published on LinkedIn