Product Management Fallacies: How to Think Like an Idiot (Part 3)

Product and project managers must be the voice of reason even if everyone else is being temporarily (or chronically) illogical. In this series we’re looking at classic errors of deductive reasoning. Today let’s consider mistakes people make when thinking about and comparing options.

Image courtesy Michelle Dennis 2008

• Set up a false dichotomy. “We can improve our product quality, or we can add new features, but we can’t do both.” Really? What if we fixed some (but not all) of the bugs and added some (but not all) proposed new features in the next release? Tradeoffs do exist, and refusal to acknowledge a genuine tradeoff is a separate fallacy. But when someone tries to force you to choose between two alternatives, do ask yourself whether choosing one or the other are the only options.
• Fail to evaluate or discount the reliability of data. Examples of dubious claims are legion. “Yes, we have budget to buy your product.” “I guarantee you we’ll close the sale if you add this one feature.” Don’t assume that everything you’re told is true. Evaluate the reliability of the data and its source and discount your confidence in the data appropriately. If you only have 30% confidence that a deal will close, do you really want to commit the next three months of your development team’s time to work that is specific to that deal?
• Weight issues inaccurately. Exaggerate. Minimize. Dismiss evidence that contradicts your current belief. Selective use of evidence is a special case in which one assigns weight zero to an arbitrary set of data points the debater would like to ignore. Ignore statistical significance. “Three out of five customers surveyed” may believe something, but if you only asked five customers and you have 5000, you know nothing about what the other 4995 may think. Confuse noise and signal. Focus on the noise. Assume that one data point makes a trend.
• Don’t weight issues at all. Failing to weight issues at all is also a mistake. It can lead to all-or-nothing thinking as a follow-on error.
• Ignore your own biases. Make no effort to correct for them. No one does analysis perfectly. Everyone has their own biases, even if it’s simply because of their role in the organization, the information their role exposes them to (their “periscope” on reality), and the problems the role makes them responsible for. Be aware of your biases, whether functional or emotional, and continuously watch out for them and try to correct for them in your thinking. If you don’t, you will succumb to them.
• Reverse the burden of proof. “Where’s your proof that we shouldn’t do this feature?” Here, the questioner is implicitly assuming that the company should do a feature (which is in fact what they should be trying to prove) and then demanding that the product manager disprove the claim. The burden of proof should always be on the person who is recommending that resources be expended.
• Exaggerate or distort your opponent’s argument so you can knock it down. (“straw man fallacy”) This technique is one of the most annoying time-wasters of all. It puts words into your mouth that you never said, accuses you of believing something you don’t, and forces you to spend time denying something you never believed in the first place. Focus on what your counterpart actually said and discuss that.
• Use bad analogies. Argument by analogy is my least favorite way to analyze problems because almost all analogies break down at some point. Even good analogies can lead to a debate about whether the analogy applies or not. Truly bad analogies are guaranteed to either waste time on such an argument or to mislead. Rather than arguing by analogy, I prefer to discuss a topic directly.
• Think in all-or-nothing terms. “Unless we do everything this customer has asked for, we will lose their business.” All-or-nothing thinking prevents creative thinking about partial solutions delivered over time that may adequately satisfy customers’ needs and preserve short-term flexibility to address other needs as well.
• Always have complete confidence that your own conclusions are correct. Mistakes cause problems; overconfidence causes catastrophes.
• Never review your own performance to determine how often you were right and wrong. The easiest way to preserve overconfidence is to never think about all the times you’ve been wrong. This is a tragic mistake because it prevents a person from recognizing they don’t reason perfectly, from developing greater skepticism about their own opinions going forward, from developing humility, and from being a better listener. Reviewing past performance is the basis for improving future performance.
• Be imprecise. If a statement is sufficiently vague, it’s almost impossible to either make use of it or to refute it. Require yourself and others to say what you mean as precisely as the available data allows.
• Indulge in denial. We covered this mistake already in “Denial, Wishful Thinking, and Bluffing,” but it’s a common enough problem that this list would be incomplete without it.
• Focus on sunk costs instead of marginal costs. “We have to commit to another major release. We’ve already spent $2 million building and launching this product!” The fact that you’ve already spent a lot of money on something doesn’t prove that spending more money on it is your best option.
• Use inconsistent standards of evidence. Demand extraordinary levels of proof from others but little or nothing from yourself. Aggressive debaters will sometimes try to win by endlessly demanding more and more evidence from their counterpart on ever more minor issues while ignoring gaping holes in the evidence for their own position. “Argument by question” is a related fallacy in which a person asks nuisance questions to slow down, distract, and wear out their counterpart in the discussion.
• Ignore everything that social psychology research has shown about human thought. Believe that you can accurately, objectively measure your own performance. Believe that you can reliably and precisely predict the future. The evidence shows that most people can’t do these things.
• Don’t even stop to think. Just say the first thing that comes into your head without considering the matter any further. Then, stubbornly cling to whatever position you took no matter how wrong it may be.

This three-part article on product management fallacies hasn’t been a complete list of every way you can think illogically, but it’s covered the basics. If you want to do more advanced study, just run for political office!

Further Reading

• A List of Fallacious Arguments by Don Lindsey