Psychology of product management

Teague

Psychology of product management
productcampdc.liveupdates@blogger.com
Confirmation bias - we can design experiments that reinforce what we love versus seeing the reality of the data

The Endowment effect - We give higher value to things that are already ours than things that belong to someone else. Because it's mine, I value it more highly - even if it is an idea. This plays into confirmation bias.

The way we test our hypotheses may just convince ourselves that we are already right.

Ego risk - Can we get out of our own way and actually do what they love rather than what we love

concepts of tech risk - can we build it?
and market risk - will someone buy it

If you cannot think of three ways things can/will fail, you have not thought hard enough about it.

Net promoter score helps understand the perspective of the person
Why is always a great question to ask - sit down with someone and learn from them.

Set of ideas - positive psychology movement - rapidly evolving area - lots of measurement - subjective levels of happiness measurement - tying products into that - great way to connect with customers beyond a pure problem-centered product.

Idea - ask people if they are satisfied with their lives - closer to current mood rather than a measure of overall happiness.

5 dimensions of happiness -some observable
Positive emotions - joy, love, bliss,
Engagement - flow - challenged to the edge of ability
Positive relationships
Meaning - effort connected to something larger than you
Achievement - the gamification idea.

Try to hit each of the 5 dimensions. to increase loyalty.

What works? What problems are you finding? Favorite psych hacks?
How do you deal with executive bias in decision-making? How do you penetrate?

If you're trying to convince someone they are wrong or you are right - don't go head to head.
validated learning campus - externalize the data - put on a board on the table - argue with the data on the table rather than argument with the person.

X is better -the customer wants this. That is a great hypothesis - let's test that. Does require some buy in. Testing is a valuable use of time - better to make the decision on data rather than pure intuition.
Customer needs this - we build it - look at usage reports - customers do not even use what we have built - see what they are actually using.

How do we confirm that? look to see ways to understand what would confirm or reject it. Does this face the risk of confirmation bias? This person's role is devil's advocate - will this test work?
drysuit materials for seals - more durable - less abrasions - going across rocks with barnacles
How to test? Pieces of glass from slides embedded in sand-like material - slides are sharp - broken makes them sharper - repeatability shows whether this works.
Need something better - no clearly defined test. Better than neoprene - best material for lowest cost. Open requirement - have a baseline....

Need to have a statistically significantly important sample. A/B testing does not help with small samples.

People intuitively misunderstand statistical significance. Reject the data based on confirmation bias.

People have a fundamental problem understanding opportunity cost.

Extreme sports were a compatible market with the SEAL products.

It's hard to have positive emotions when you're dead.

Need to have enough ego to defend your idea, and little enough ego to let a better idea win.

We see this issue with startups all the time - founders have a reality distortion field - you start to believe it - even if it's not true. have to persevere through rejection - but look at data to see if there is a new reality where the market will accept it.

People who are not the user community are deciding whether to buy the product.
Must close the gap between the economic buyer and the user - who is the influencer.
I would get testimonials - present a solution - oh that's great - better than nothing - but doesn't completely solve their problem so they wont buy - repeat until you have the minimum feature set that will sell.

Vision - have to articulate the vision to the different clientele - 10 jobs across 20 years - lots of different roles - now I'm one of the ones who makes the buy decision - go to lunch with them, speak their language. People want to be satisfied - but can they relate?

have to speak different languages at different levels - go to lunch with lots of different departments.
What drives them? How can I connect mt offering to their vision, need and pain.

I butt up against product managers - I'm here to understand you people.
How to talk to someone who is not the end user but has the authority to buy or reject
Develop personas to help handle objectives.
Classic IT proble,m - the decider - is the procurement guy - never actually uses the product.
Classic RFP problem - correlation between Yes and success to RFP criteria? Pretty low.
If the IT or procurement person is in the way - get the users to talk to them.

Make the decision on criteria for outcomes that you're not responsible for you.
If you don't have the strategy you're shafted.
I need to understand the psyche of each of the participants.
Ideally all players haver helped you to reach end users during research - to get buy in in the process - this feedback came from your users.

6 thinking hats - put people in mental frames for decision-making process. Is anyone using a framework for that?
I have been sales manager - have done sales. The message gets lost. How are you going to help?
I was in a small company and made a lot of my own decisions - went to large org and could not get anything done b/c I could not speak the jargon in the new world.

Did you notice a change in the biases in a large company? Small companies are clearer and simpler language - big co requires buzzwords. If there's a priority on a GenY objective - must tie to that.

The corporation does not make decisions - individuals make those decisions - you need to speak to their needs. Know, like, trust.

So much risk aversion in a big company - I'll try it and if it fails I'll be accountable. Meetings are too big, too many approvals - by the time you hve buy in across the business - you're no longer meeting needs.

Overlooking the fact that money was spent. People overlook the opportunity cost of having a huge success.

You've achieved the level of risk aversion that is very very risky.

Everything has risk - you have to say - it's risky if you do X
It's risky to do nothing.
It's risky to do Y or Z
What risks are you comfortable with?

Is there a small bet? Can you quantify the costs?
People are irationally afraid of competition.
The risk of not doing it is losing x% of the market to the competition.
We're being left behind. Is this a conscious decision?
What game are we playing?

HBO on your laptop - the competition has it... The value of product management is to say
change the method or basis of dealing with competition.

Something to be said for setting realistic expectations - it's great to get input from lots of stakeholders - but it takes time and has some cost associated with it. Keep the main thing the main thing.
it would be great to have buy in from stakeholders without making them decision-makers.
When you have 20+ people in the decision-making process - it slows momentum - and dilutes accountability.

Are you ok with failing? There is risk - there's nothing wrong with that.
hardest challenge CEOs face is managing your own personal psychology - Marc Andreesen
It helps to fail fast!
It's ok to fail - not ok to keep failing in the same way.


"Because people matter, we must lead them well."
www.BrightHillGroup.com
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Sent from my mobile device. Typos courtesy of autocorrect.