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Why Your Product Idea Feels So Brilliant (and Why It Might Not Be)
- Confirmation bias, explained as a little voice in our head that filters the world to match what we already believe, affects our personal beliefs and sneaks into every corner of product management.
- User interviews, data analysis, feature prioritization, feedback, user perceptions of usability, test participants ideas, and recommendations are some areas where confirmation bias shows up in product management.
- Confirmation bias can lead to skewed takeaways and misguided decisions, which can make it difficult for objectivity and data analysis to reign supreme, making it more important than ever for product managers to keep our biases in check.
- As humans, a little confirmation bias is inevitable. It’s wired into us, and as much as we’d like to think we’re immune, we’re not. There are practical ways Product Managers can keep confirmation bias in check.
- Product managers should encourage team members to play devil’s advocate and poke holes in your ideas to find flaws early in the process.
- They should ask open-ended questions that encourage honest feedback and frame questions neutrally instead of asking for validation.
- Study negative data, dive into the why and learn from it so that more objective and smarter decisions can be made with a greater degree of success.
- Great products are not built on what we want to believe. They are built on what’s real. The more product managers challenge themselves to seek the truth, the better the product will be.
- Real-world examples of product launch failures due to confirmation bias include Coca-Cola and Microsoft, who failed to address customers’ emotional connections to their products and overestimated their position in the market, respectively.
- In conclusion, being aware of confirmation bias and actively working to overcome it is vital for product managers to build better products for their users.
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