blind-unknown-unknowns
Installation
SKILL.md
Unknown Unknowns
Overview
The knowledge matrix (1960s aerospace/defense risk practice — "unk-unks", documented from 1968, common at NASA; made famous by Rumsfeld's February 2002 briefing, who credited NASA's William Graham; the Johari Window of Luft & Ingham, 1955, is an analogous, independently developed 2×2):
| We know it | We don't know it | |
|---|---|---|
| We know we know/don't | Known knowns (facts) | Known unknowns (open questions) |
| We don't know we… | Unknown knowns (unexamined assumptions, tacit knowledge) | Unknown unknowns (unmodeled surprises) |
Risk registers only ever contain known unknowns — by definition. The two bottom-row cells are where projects die: unknown knowns (assumptions so deep nobody wrote them down) and unknown unknowns (categories you haven't imagined). Neither yields to direct listing; both yield to indirect hunting.
When to Use
- Risk lists that look complete (they're complete over the top row only)
- Novel work with no precedent in your own history
- Post-planning, pre-commitment ("what category of thing haven't we considered?")
- After a surprise: classify which cell it came from to fix the process, not just the instance