A New Way to Disagree
Act I
As we add a new navigation paradigm to the Yammer iOS app a spot of contention has surfaced around the “Back” button. I won’t go into the fiddly details behind the product debate itself, but I will share with you a bit about how the debate has played out and what I’ve learned about disagreement.
Lots of voices got involved in the product review for this feature. Loud voices, soft voices, those with a lot of authority in the org and others without. Two camps have formed, and they are pretty well fortified.
Because the Yammer Way dictates that those closest to the problem have ownership of the solution, the decision will come down to myself and one designer. Only thing is, we don’t agree.
Act II
Coming out of our lively product review I grabbed a focus room, a whiteboard, a half hour & my designer. We had all the inputs we needed and it was time to make a call.
Except that was a terrible idea.
I knew that if we walked into that room and started Pro & Con-ing things, one of us would persuade our way to the finish line and push the product in “our” direction. Confirmation bias was sure to rear its delightful head, discouraging honest evaluation of our options.
As much as I‘d like to believe I have the best ideas for our product, I am more interested getting the best product for our users.
I have no doubt my designer also wants what is best for our users—we simply have different ideas of what that is and why.
So I proposed we try disagreeing in a new way—figuring out why we felt differently instead of discussing why one option was better than another.
We agreed to set any antagonism or sense of self-preservation aside and go down a shared path of investigation for the next 30 minutes. From “Here’s why I think my idea is better” to “Why do I believe something that you do not?”
Act III
What beauty. Instead of championing on for Option A or B, we spent 15 minutes uncovering the root reasons for our divergence, 10 minutes devising tests to invalidate our assumptions on both sides, and the last 5 minutes discussing how pleasurable it was to disagree like that.
By not arguing for my idea, I removed the need for my designer to defend theirs.
It was such an easy shift to make. Neither of us felt like we lost anything or had to bend to the other. We still hold our same opinions, but very softly now. Each ready and willing to be wrong when the tests we devised come back.
No matter what happens with this feature, I have learned a new, powerful and really enjoyable way to disagree. I plan to bring this to many more product debates to come. Stay tuned…
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