A journalist asked him a question regarding the lack of evidence linking Iraq’s government with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups. Unknown unknowns – Donald Rumsfeldĭonald Rumsfeld was US Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006. If they do something, we haven’t a clue when it will be.

However, we do not know what they will do, i.e., we have no idea. We suspect they plan to do something in the future, such as set off a bomb or poison our water supply.

We know there are terrorists in our country (known known), but we do not know how many (known unknown). The number of terrorists in those countries is a known unknown. However, we do not know how many there are. We might not know, for example, how many of them there are.įor example, we know there are terrorists in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Known unknowns refers to things we know exist, but we do not have all the information. Perhaps they also use them when they have no idea what right the answer is. Many journalists say that when politicians use these ‘known’ terms, they are trying not to answer the question. For example, the US Pentagon knows how many American troops there are in the Middle East. This term refers to things that we are certain about, i.e., we know. Including unknown unknowns, four terms relate to the words ‘known’ or ‘unknown.’ Known knowns “Future circumstances, events, or outcomes that are impossible to predict, plan for, or even know where or when to look for them.” Strategic planning is a company’s or organization’s process of defining its strategy.ī has the following meaning of the term: Project management involves planning, organizing, and managing many things, including a team to see through a project’s completion. Unknown unknowns is a common term in strategic planning and project management. We don’t even know when and where to search for them. Unknown unknowns are future outcomes, events, circumstances, or consequences that we cannot predict.

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