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There's a critical difference between opinions and evidence — and even smart people inside the building often confuse the two. Customers don't know what they want, so how do we figure out what they actually need? This piece explores when to trust internal expertise, when to just build something, and when to run experiments instead. Drawing on Jeff Gothelf and Joshua Seiden's prioritization canvas from Lean UX, it offers a simple two-dimensional way to think about value and the risk of harvesting that value — and a clear answer to the question every product team wrestles with: when is it time to experiment?

Most product owners in the world are scribes or proxies, which means they don't have much real power. Pretending otherwise doesn't fix it — but there are two coping strategies that can help. One borrows a concept from Large-Scale Scrum, the other is a simple "speak now or forever hold your silence" meeting that can buy you real authority for a sprint at a time.