OVERCOME YOUR MINDThe Psychology of Better Product Decisions

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LAURE PARSONS, SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER

BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

& COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

ARE NEW

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1960s

Cognitive Science

Emerges 1970s

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Kversky’s Nobel-winning psychology work

2013

Chip & Dan

Heath’s

Decisive

2008

Dan Ariely’s

Predictably

Irrational

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PRODUCT MANAGEMENT IS NEW, TOO

Credit: Martin Eriksson@laurex

1930s

P&G Brand Men

1950s-1970s

Toyota Kaizen

& Genchi Genbutsu

2001

Agile Methodology

1960s

Cognitive Science

Emerges 1970s

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Kversky’s Nobel-winning psychology work

2013

Chip & Dan

Heath’s

Decisive

2008

Dan Ariely’s

Predictably

Irrational

2008

Lean Startup

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WHAT’S WRONG WITH OUR THINKING?

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THE HUMAN BRAIN

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SYSTEM 1 & SYSTEM 2

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COGNITIVE BIASES

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Overconfidence

Confirmation Bias

Short-term emotion & the Recency Bias

Narrow Framing

Loss Aversion

Availability Heuristic

The Law of Small Numbers & The Clustering Illusion

Correlation vs. Causation & the Fundamental Attribution Error

COGNITIVE BIASES

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OVERCONFIDENCE

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Yes, I’m sure we can deliver that feature in

the next sprint!

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CONFIRMATION BIAS

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Woah, it’s amazing how much the articles in my Medium feed support my ideas! I must be on the

right track.

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SHORT-TERM EMOTION

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NARROW FRAMING

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There are really only two options: release a new feature this month or fix the bugs in the

old feature.

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LOSS AVERSION+ The Sunk Cost Fallacy

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Even though no one is using this feature, if we

just improve it, it could be SO COOL. Because we’ve already gotten this far.

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+ The Recency Bias

AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC

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Hey, after we released our last feature, we got

a complaint from a customer. We should fix the issue right away!

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OXXXOXXXOXXOOOOOOXXOO

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THE CLUSTERING ILLUSION

OXXXOXXXOXXOOOOOOXXOO

+ The Law of Small Numbers

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CORRELATION VS CAUSATION+ The Fundamental Attribution Error

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WHAT CAN WE DO TO THINK BETTER?

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BETTER METHODS TO MAKE DECISIONS

The 5 Whys - Root Cause Analysis

Reality Testing / Data - MVP, A/B Tests, Landing Pages

Get some distance - collect information about “what typically happens in a situation like ours” instead of what you want to happen or fear will happen

Prepare to be wrong (or at least incomplete)- adopt the opposite viewpoint to the one you have and try to find the merits in it

Pre-mortem

Vanishing Options

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PRE-MORTEM

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VANISHING OPTIONS

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MASTERING PRODUCT UNBIASING

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THE FOUR ESSENTIALS OF LESS BIASED PRODUCT DECISION MAKING

MVP

User Research

Team Intelligence

Metrics & Counter Metrics

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MVP

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MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION

Sunk cost bias

Loss Aversion

Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)

Confirmation Bias

Preparing to be wrong

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MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION

Sunk cost bias

Loss Aversion

Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)

Confirmation Bias

Preparing to be wrong

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MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION

Sunk cost bias

Loss Aversion

Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)

Confirmation Bias

Preparing to be wrong

@laurex

MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION

Sunk cost bias

Loss Aversion

Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)

Confirmation Bias

Preparing to be wrong

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USER RESEARCH

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USER RESEARCH

Resist Confirmation Bias by asking open-ended questions

Avoid the Availability Heuristic by talking to users you don’t know

Mistrust a small sample size but find patterns with just a few users

Combat Narrow Framing by using “and” instead of “or”

Test Reality by finding out what users are doing now

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USER RESEARCH

Resist Confirmation Bias by asking open-ended questions

Avoid the Availability Heuristic by talking to users you don’t know

Mistrust a small sample size (The Law of Small Numbers) but find patterns with just a few users

Combat Narrow Framing by using “and” instead of “or”

Test Reality by finding out what users are doing now

@laurex

USER RESEARCH

Resist Confirmation Bias by asking open-ended questions

Avoid the Availability Heuristic by talking to users you don’t know

Mistrust a small sample size but find patterns with just a few users

Combat Narrow Framing by using “and” instead of “or”

Test Reality by finding out what users are doing now

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TEAM INTELLIGENCE

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Test Reality by using Velocity, Throughput and Code Quality to measure Team Capacity.

Tripwire: anonymous team polls

Avoid the Bandwagon Effect with polling

Tripwire: setting internal deadlines or milestones@laurex

Test Reality by using Velocity, Throughput and Code Quality to measure Team Capacity.

Tripwire: anonymous team polls

Avoid the Bandwagon Effect with polling

Tripwire: setting internal deadlines or milestones@laurex

Test Reality by using Velocity, Throughput and Code Quality to measure Team Capacity.

Tripwire: anonymous team polls

Avoid the Bandwagon Effect with polling

Tripwire: setting internal deadlines or milestones@laurex

DATA DATA DATA

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METRICS AND COUNTER-METRICS

Truthful data

Vanity metrics

OKRs

Counter metrics

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-Ronald Coase, Economist

TRUTHIf you torture the data long enough, it will confess.

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VANITY METRICS

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OKRS

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COUNTER-METRICS@laurex

THINK DIFFERENT

(But use correct grammar)

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RESOURCESPredictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman Decisive, Made to Stick- Chip & Dan Heath

Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful - Gabriel Weinberg Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH)

The Four Villains of Product Management Four steps to more Decisive product decisions

Gib Biddle on Netflix Product Strategy

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