What if you had a team of people whose sole job was to find fault with your thinking?
It's called a Red Team. Used by the CIA, IBM, the Army, news organizations and other businesses, a Red team is a group designed to penetrate your defenses.
This is an old post, not very good but it has some valid points that are worth visiting:
The Red Team finds the problems, risks, and bugs that the insiders miss. In high stakes situations, a Red Team can save you from making a terrible mistake.
A little dramatic but it is essentially true. A good Red Team can look at a solution or plan from a different perspective and provide that extra level of evil thinking that can find the issues that no one found.
Here are three high stakes situations that call for a Red Team:
- There's a lot of money at stake.
- The decision will be hard to undue.
- Someone is rushing you.
The Right Red Team can help you avert disaster. But they're only valuable if you listen to them.
I like her point on #3: "I've learned if someone is pushing for a fast decision, it's often because there's something they don't want you to find out.", yes, a good Red Team can help you make an educated decision on those 3 situations. However, Red Teams are not only good in finding the problems, they are good also in helping you with the solutions. Having a Red Team as an integral part of your planning is a must when the risk is high.