A team brings three things to a review: a usability session in which every participant completed the task, an engineering spike showing the work fits one quarter with existing tooling, and written sign-off from legal, finance and support. Which of the four risks is still open, and what would close it?

The principle — an evidence review is an audit against four named questions, and the useful finding is usually the question nobody asked.

Why the key is correct — take the four in turn. Usability asks whether users can figure out how to use it and the session answers it. Feasibility asks whether our engineers can build what we need with the time, skills and technology we have and the spike answers it against the real tooling. Business viability asks whether this solution also works for the various aspects of our business and the sign-off from legal, finance and support answers it. Value asks whether customers will buy it or users will choose to use it and nothing in the review touches it: a participant handed a task made no choice, an engineering spike involves no customer, and an internal sign-off is not a market. Closing it needs evidence of people choosing, which is a different exercise from all three.

Why the others are wrong — declaring nothing open lets three answers vouch for a question nobody asked, which is the exact failure mode of a single confidence score. Naming usability as the gap invents a sequence the four risks do not have, so being early in it cannot be the problem. And downgrading the spike ranks the evidence by how impressive it feels rather than by which question it answers, which is how the missing one stays missing.

Remember this — audit the evidence one risk at a time, and the gap will usually be value.

Sources — Marty Cagan on the four big risks, Silicon Valley Product Group.