Talk given at Product Tank PDX, July 2016. Use cognitive psychology and data to make better product decisions.

1. OVERCOME YOUR MIND
The Psychology of Better Product Decisions
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2. LinkedIn, Medium & Twitter: @laurex
LAURE PARSONS,
SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER

3. BEHAVIORAL
ECONOMICS
& COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
ARE NEW
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4. 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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5. PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT
IS NEW, TOO Credit: Martin Eriksson@laurex

6. 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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7. WHAT’S WRONG WITH
OUR THINKING?
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8. THE HUMAN BRAIN
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9. SYSTEM 1 & SYSTEM 2
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10. COGNITIVE BIASES
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11. 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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12. OVERCONFIDENCE
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13. Yes, I’m sure we can
deliver that feature in
the next sprint!
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14. CONFIRMATION BIAS
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15. 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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16. SHORT-TERM EMOTION
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17. NARROW FRAMING
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18. There are really only
two options: release a
new feature this month
or fix the bugs in the
old feature.
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19. LOSS AVERSION
+ The Sunk Cost Fallacy
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20. 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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21. + The Recency Bias
AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC
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22. 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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23. OXXXOXXXOXXOOOOOOXXOO
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24. THE CLUSTERING ILLUSION
OXXXOXXXOXXOOOOOOXXOO
+ The Law of Small Numbers
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25. CORRELATION VS CAUSATION
+ The Fundamental Attribution Error
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26. @laurex

27. WHAT CAN WE DO TO
THINK BETTER?
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28. 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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29. PRE-MORTEM
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30. VANISHING OPTIONS
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31. MASTERING PRODUCT
UNBIASING
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32. THE FOUR ESSENTIALS OF LESS BIASED PRODUCT
DECISION MAKING
MVP
User Research
Team Intelligence
Metrics & Counter Metrics
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33. MVP
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34. MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION
Sunk cost bias
Loss Aversion
Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)
Confirmation Bias
Preparing to be wrong
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35. MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION
Sunk cost bias
Loss Aversion
Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)
Confirmation Bias
Preparing to be wrong
@laurex

36. MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION
Sunk cost bias
Loss Aversion
Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)
Confirmation Bias
Preparing to be wrong
@laurex

37. MINIMUM VALUABLE PERCEPTION
Sunk cost bias
Loss Aversion
Narrow framing (by testing different ideas)
Confirmation Bias
Preparing to be wrong
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38. USER RESEARCH
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39. 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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40. 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

41. 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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42. TEAM INTELLIGENCE
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43. 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
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44. 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

45. 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

46. DATA DATA DATA
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47. METRICS AND COUNTER-METRICS
Truthful data
Vanity metrics
OKRs
Counter metrics
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48. -Ronald Coase, Economist
TRUTH
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.
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49. VANITY METRICS
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50. OKRS
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51. COUNTER-METRICS@laurex

52. THINK
DIFFERENT
(But use correct grammar)
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53. RESOURCES
Predictably 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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