Thinking tools: How to identify assumptions by distorting time - Abi Jones

Stack-ranking and OKRs only work if you're already looking at the right work. The real problem is that most decision-making tools help you choose from a list, but they don't tell you if the list itself is flawed. Time Distortion breaks you out of that tactical tunnel vision by forcing you to question the foundations of a project through artificial timeline manipulation.

The mechanics are straightforward. Take your twelve-month roadmap and ask: what if we only had six months? Three months? What would we prioritize, and what would we strip away? Then flip it: what if we had ten times as much time? How would that change our approach to foundational infrastructure or long-term scalability? Compression forces you to find the highest-leverage actions. Expansion forces you to consider the longevity and stability of your solution. The tactics reveal exactly where your current strategy falls apart.

The most powerful variant is the status quo swap, borrowed from Matthew Verraes. Imagine a parallel universe where the New Thing has been mainstream for 30 years, and you're just now discovering the Old Thing. For healthcare AI, flip the question: what if doctors have used AI assistance for 30 years, and you're proposing to remove it and return to manual diagnosis? What would be the risks and benefits? This swap exposes the inherent bias we have toward the status quo and helps identify the real value of proposed innovation.

AI works well as a partner for this exercise because it doesn't have sunk cost bias. Feed your roadmap into an AI and ask it to apply specific dials: if the deadline moved to 90 days, which 20% of features maintain 80% of value? If we had to support this for 20 years, what foundational risks are we ignoring? The AI provides the extreme scenario, you provide the leadership to decide which insights are actionable. These tools won't help you innovate toward a brand-new field, but they will help you expand your thinking about the path you're already on.