When and How to Re-Evaluate Product Decisions
Written by Chris Petersen & Yassin Abo El Nour
My Hardest Decision is a series where I interview product managers about challenging decisions they’ve had to make, how they approached the situation, and how decision making-best practices could be applied to similar situations in the future. The situations are all real, but we occasionally change some names and specific details to protect the employed.
Background
Who’s had to deal with a zombie product, or zombie idea? You know, the one that you thought was dead and keeps coming back over and over again. Sometimes it’s a product line that is no longer being touched but seems to survive calls for end of life. Sometimes it’s simply an idea or proposal that, despite being discussed multiple times, keeps coming back to the forefront.
In Yassin’s case it was an idea, but not just any idea. It was the original focus of the company prior to his arrival, and something they pivoted away from within a few months of him starting. Yassin was hired in as the first product manager to the company right as the company was grappling with whether they should pivot away from their original model to a new one that had stronger indicators of market fit. The original model was struggling to achieve market fit beyond a few customers, and like most start ups the clock was running and resources were tight. The company ultimately decided on a pivot towards the new model, and subsequently de-prioritized any work related to the original model.
“Customers ultimately ‘hire’ your product to do one thing really well. Unless your value prop is inherently about building a suite of tools, you need to focus on creating deep enough value in that one area to merit a purchase.”
Over the next several months there would occasionally be requests from the customer success team to re-introduce features and aspects of the original model. Yassin continued to push back, arguing that with a very small development team that there just aren’t enough resources to make enough progress on the new focus of the business to entertain small detours.
While Yassin still feels confident they made the right call to focus on the new model, the fact that sales and customers keep asking about the original functionality naturally lets some doubt creep in once in a while. Continuing to talk about it also takes up cycles with the executive team and for Yassin that should be spent fully focused on the current objectives of the business. Additionally, to organize his own thoughts on the matter Yassin needs to find a way to ensure that he’s not deprioritizing something that may have merit.
“As most of us have experienced, a ‘No’ from Product is rarely a ‘Never.’ Product market fit is not a static target, and it’s our job to respond to market and customer stimuli to maintain that fit. Context is everything.”
Decision Making Best Practice: Working Backwards from “What Would Need to Be True?”
If a topic just won’t go away, one of the best ways to appropriately evaluate when and if to change your mind is writing down what would need to be true to change course. It forces you to test the assumptions you have about the current course as well as get alignment from all parties on what would be required to switch. Chip & Dan Heath do a great job of outlining a similar approach, known as “tripwires,” in their book Decisive.
The alignment part is key. If the requirements to switch course, and that could be a full pivot or even just entertaining “some work,” are well documented and agreed to by all upfront, then there is literally nothing to talk about until those conditions are met. Daily conversations can stay focused on the current course and what matters. It also can focus the efforts of those who believe a switch is necessary on finding the facts required to bring everyone else along.
Documenting criteria upfront also helps you avoid several biases that can cloud necessary decisions in the moment. Product managers spend a lot of energy keeping projects “sold” inside the company and everyone aligned to the strategy. Unfortunately that effort can also close you off to new information signaling that a change in direction may be warranted The slightly more official name for this is “commitment bias,” where we remain committed to past decisions even when presented with new information that may suggest our assumptions were wrong. It’s the non-financial version of “sunk cost fallacy.”
Remaining open to new information and being able to appropriately respond to it is one of the most important traits of successful product managers. If at the outset you write down what’s required to change or reverse course you are more likely to take action when required. A clear-headed dispassionate version of yourself from several months ago laid out the ruleset. A decision made based on those criteria is more likely to be acted upon than one made in a crisis moment by present-day you.
In Yassin’s case it isn’t a crisis situation, but rather something that can just be a little distracting from time to time. They are also already past the initial decision, but as this isn’t a crisis situation there’s little less opportunity for the criteria to be biased. Documenting what would need to be true would help him and his peers stay focused until there is actually something new to discuss.
The approach of “what would need to be true?” is extremely helpful in situations where the stakes are high. If the outcome of changing or reversing a decision is likely to adversely affect the company or customers in a meaningful way, it’s much easier to “give it more time” or find less painful paths forward. The outcome may be painful for the company, customers, and even you personally, but in many of these cases it will be much less so if you act immediately. You can cause a lot of extra, unnecessary damage waiting to “see if things might improve” when you already have all the information necessary to act.
Summary
For all major decisions, get in the habit of documenting up front what would need to be true to change course or reverse your decision. Changing course can be a full pivot into something else, or splitting your attention between the current choice and something new. Reversals tend to be the higher-stakes and higher pressure situations which is where this approach is especially helpful. Get the team together involved with making the initial decision involved and have everyone document and agree to the criteria for a change. Finally, publish these criteria so that everyone can see the triggers. Doing this little bit of extra work up front can save you and your company a lot of pain down the road.
If you’re navigating difficult decisions as a product manager, please reach out! I would love to help if I can and maybe one day we can share your story here as a resource for others.
