The 5-50-95 Validation Method

On avoiding rework and frustration

Author

Bruno Nogueira
August 07, 2023

Picture this:

You just got a new important task from your boss.

Maybe it's a presentation. Or a piece of in-depth research. A "what if" simulation, Monte Carlo style.

Something important for your moment in your career…

You plow through it for two weeks, doing the best job you can.

And then you show it to your boss.

"Eh, actually that's not really how I was picturing the output…"

No bueno.

You've just wasted 2 weeks of your time and left your boss with a bad taste in their mouth…

Maybe they didn't explain themselves enough. Maybe you misunderstood it.

Regardless, you left a bad impression, so this became your problem.

You didn't validate your work along the way and because of that, you'll need to work extra time to turn the job in in time and regain your reputation.

The extreme opposite of this – showing your "work-in-progress" to your boss at the end of every day can be almost as bad.

Now you don't have the same risks of going in the wrong direction, but at what cost?

At the cost of your boss' time and attention, of course!

(And at the cost of you not being seen as someone who's "independent", something important if you want to become the boss someday.)

Fellow reader Raphael shared a tip that strikes the right balance.

I call it the 5-50-95 Work Validation Method:

Here's my tip: There are 3 crucial moments to validade your work with your manager, senior consultant or director: 5%, 50% and 95%.

- 5%: Validation of your general idea and what you're thinking to do

- 50%: Midway, you can validade what you're doing to see if its what you should have done or you should change it, to prevent rework

- 95%: In the end, you show the final result for adjustments of minor details

This may seem obvious in hindsight, but in my experience, most junior people don't apply this enough and most managers don't make this explicit enough for their team.

So, just making a point of applying this will make your work more effective:

  • You'll all know that the work is going in the right direction…

  • … Without taking a lot of "boss time"...

  • … All while making sure that both can contribute without a lot of micromanagement.

But I think this method can get even more powerful with one simple "tweak".

The power of explicit touchpoints

It is one thing to do this "implicitly".

(And it's already very effective, by the way.)

But if you can make these 3 touch points EXPLICIT (as a contributor or as a manager), then the 5-50-95 Method gets even more powerful.

What I mean by this is to, at the outset of the project / task, make it explicit that there will be 3 formal touch points and also make it known at what rough stages will they be (e.g.: 5-50-95%).

When this happens, both parties know that at the 5% touch point, they MUST come prepared to discuss and decide what will be done until the 50% touch point.

(And, of course, at the 50% they must decide what will be done until the 95% one.)

Now these validation meetings gain stakes.

What's been decided has been decided – the boss can't keep changing their minds afterward (within reason, of course).

The more junior contributor, on the other hand, gains more autonomy. They get to make their own decisions on how to achieve the agreed-upon output. The destination is set, but not the route necessarily.

Sounds like a loss for the manager and a win for the contributor, but only if you think the role of the manager is to micromanage things and "boss around".

Otherwise, it's a win-win.

Keep working smarter.