How to de-risk your decision.

There’s a small Swiss village that sits high atop a sheer cliff in the Swiss Alps. It looks exactly like you think a Swiss Village deep in the mountains should look. It’s quaint and quiet, with kind people and unbelievable views in every direction.

I’ve been visiting for several years now, but one of the things I noticed on one of my first visits was a strange collection of 20 and 30-foot poles rising out of the ground. They are laid out in a strange way that made no sense to me, and they are all sitting on an undeveloped lot right on the cliff edge of the village facing out to the valley far below.

I asked a local about them and was told that they are what’s called Baugespanne. Essentially a skeleton structure that allows locals to visualize the size and scale of a proposed building/structure.

And they leave them there for years before approving or denying the builder’s permit for building something in that space.

The reason they leave it up for so long is so the locals have ample time to see which parts of their view would be blocked if a new building was erected in that spot. They can see which mountains would be blocked or what it might look and feel like during different seasons.

This elongated “testing” period also allows for people who own vacation condos or houses in Mürren to weigh in if they only visit once or twice a year.

It’s a low-fidelity prototype but not built for rapid iteration, as we often teach in the design thinking world. It’s built for slow feedback when making a quick decision could result in long-lasting reduced quality of life.

There is so much I love about this, but what I love the most is that, unlike what I commonly see in America, the Swiss are incredibly protective of their views!