Exercise 2: Why Early "Still Investigating" Beats Silence — Possible Solution
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Per the chapter, "customers experiencing a problem already know
something is wrong" -- an early communication isn't REVEALING a
problem the customer wouldn't otherwise notice; it's acknowledging one
they're already experiencing directly. This changes the calculation
entirely: the choice isn't between "customer knows" and "customer
doesn't know," it's between "customer knows AND has been told someone
is aware and working on it" versus "customer knows AND has heard
nothing at all."

Why silence is worse:

Silence during an active, customer-visible problem leaves people to
assume the worst -- that the issue hasn't even been noticed yet, or
that nobody is actively working on it. Per the chapter, "silence reads
as worse than an honest 'we're investigating' update" -- an early,
honest acknowledgment demonstrates the organization is aware and
actively engaged, even without yet having a resolution or a confirmed
cause.

Why NOT waiting for a complete, confirmed root cause first:

Per the chapter, prematurely announcing an UNCONFIRMED root cause is
itself a real mistake -- if it turns out to be wrong, walking it back
damages trust more than never having speculated in the first place.
But this doesn't mean waiting in silence until a root cause IS
confirmed -- it specifically means communicating EARLY about the fact
of investigation itself ("we're aware, we're investigating"), while
deliberately NOT speculating about the specific cause until it's
actually confirmed. These are two separate things: communicating that
work is happening, versus communicating unconfirmed conclusions about
WHY it's happening.

The regular update cadence (e.g. "next update in 30 minutes") also
matters specifically because it sets an expectation -- customers
aren't left wondering when they'll hear anything next, reducing
anxiety and repeated inbound questions during the investigation.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This distinguishes two things the chapter treats as genuinely
separate -- communicating EARLY that investigation is underway (good
practice) vs. speculating about an UNCONFIRMED root cause (a mistake
to avoid) -- rather than conflating "communicate early" with
"announce a cause early," which is exactly the distinction the chapter
itself draws between its "communicate early" and "avoid speculating"
points.