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Cognitive bias in product management: 10 traps product managers can avoid
Explore the biases
Product managers today face a unique challenge. Not only do they need to design and build innovative features, they have to understand how those features are going to drive value for customers and advance key business goals.
Left unchecked, cognitive biases can lead to misalignment between what you build and what customers want or the business needs. Do you know how cognitive bias may be affecting how you work or make product decisions?
4 ways to break free from cognitive bias
No one is completely free of biases–and that’s OK. Here are some effective ways to handle it:
1. Acknowledge your bias
We are all biased as humans. The important thing is to acknowledge their existence and factor ways of combating them into your product management model.
Where to start? Build a culture of feedback, iteration, and experimentation within and across your product teams. Welcome all points of view. Let data guide your decision-making.
2. Seek the facts
It’s unrealistic to think only the right data will always be your guiding star on every product decision. But do your best to spot biases and rely on data-driven insights where possible.
Leverage product analytics to understand the user journey. Examine your users by segments – are you seeing patterns in key metrics like adoption/time to value/NPS? This allows you to potentially spot a pattern indicating whether needs or concerns of different segments are going unaddressed and whether customer priorities align with your own.
3. Explore other perspectives
Feedback is a gift, no matter what it’s telling you. Don’t just focus on customers who are already happy. Get fresh points of view from multiple areas, including users you consider your “haters.”
Build a complete picture through soliciting regular feedback: poll and survey your users where and when it matters most (when they’re in the app) to determine the efficacy of a new feature or gauge user wants and needs to inform the roadmap. Proactively target user segments whose voice may be underrepresented in product planning meetings.
4. Be curious, yet specific
Being data driven is necessary for a product team to succeed. But it’s not sufficient. Be curious. Experiment. Test new approaches. But be clear about what you're trying to learn and what "success" looks like, including positive and negative outcomes. Be specific about your KPIs and get relevant stakeholders aligned.
Try to challenge your own ideas as much as possible, and if there’s data that supports your own point of view, verify that it’s relevant and/or statistically significant.
Cognitive biases can be tricky to combat. But for product teams, there's a way forward: data.
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