How Product Managers Can Leverage Hanlon’s Razor to Make Better Decisions

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Bootcamp

4 min readDec 23, 2024

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

This simple yet profound principle, known as Hanlon’s Razor, holds the potential to transform how product managers (PMs) handle conflicts, setbacks, and miscommunications. In the fast-paced, cross-functional world of product development, understanding the intent behind actions is crucial. Applying Hanlon’s Razor can lead to better collaboration, clearer decision-making, and a healthier product culture.

📜 A Brief History of Hanlon’s Razor

Hanlon’s Razor is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon, who coined the phrase in the 1980s. However, the core idea dates back to earlier thinkers, including Goethe and Napoleon. It aligns with the broader concept of Occam’s Razor — favoring simpler explanations over complex conspiracies. The principle suggests that more often than not, poor outcomes arise from incompetence, miscommunication, or oversight rather than deliberate sabotage.

🚀 Why Hanlon’s Razor Matters for Product Managers

The PM’s Role: A Juggling Act

PMs sit at the intersection of engineering, design, marketing, and customer experience. They act as the glue that holds product teams together, often navigating competing interests and differing perspectives. Misunderstandings are inevitable. Misattributing intentions can escalate tensions, derail projects, and harm morale.

Hanlon’s Razor offers a mindset shift:

🔄 Interpret errors as process gaps, not personal attacks.
🤝 Build empathy and trust across teams.
🔍 Focus on problem-solving instead of blame-assigning.

📊 Hanlon’s Razor in Action: Real-World Use Cases for Product Managers

1. Misaligned Features or Requirements

Scenario: Your engineering team delivers a feature that doesn’t align with the product spec.
PM Reaction (Without Hanlon’s Razor): “They didn’t care enough to read the spec thoroughly.”
PM Reaction (With Hanlon’s Razor): “Perhaps there was ambiguity in the spec, or they misunderstood the priority.”
Solution: Schedule a retrospective. Clarify requirements and align priorities to avoid future disconnects.

2. Missed Deadlines

Scenario: A critical launch date slips due to unresolved bugs.
PM Reaction (Without Hanlon’s Razor): “The QA team must have overlooked testing properly.”
PM Reaction (With Hanlon’s Razor): “Maybe the QA team was overloaded or lacked clarity on priorities.”
Solution: Reevaluate workload distribution and improve communication around priorities.

3. Customer Complaints Escalating

Scenario: A new feature rollout leads to increased customer complaints.
PM Reaction (Without Hanlon’s Razor): “Support didn’t handle the issue well.”
PM Reaction (With Hanlon’s Razor): “Perhaps support lacked documentation or proper training on the new feature.”
Solution: Collaborate with support teams to develop better training and FAQs.

🛠️ Implementation: Building Hanlon’s Razor into Product Management Processes

🧩 Real-Life Example: Slack’s Early Growth

During Slack’s early development, there were frequent misalignments between the product and engineering teams. Rather than assuming malice or laziness, leadership recognized that teams had different understandings of user needs. By applying the spirit of Hanlon’s Razor, Slack introduced more cross-functional discussions, improved documentation, and embraced transparency — contributing to their eventual success.

🚧 Shortcomings of Hanlon’s Razor

While Hanlon’s Razor fosters empathy and trust, it isn’t foolproof.

Over-Simplification — Not all mistakes stem from incompetence. Sometimes, deliberate poor decisions or hidden agendas exist.
Accountability Erosion — Constantly attributing errors to misunderstanding can lead to lax accountability.
Complex Issues — Some problems have multiple causes, blending incompetence with intentionality.

🔄 Alternatives and Complementary Frameworks

🚀 Next Steps for Product Managers

1. Promote Psychological Safety

Encourage open communication where teams feel comfortable admitting mistakes without fear of blame.

2. Bake Hanlon’s Razor into Culture

Introduce Hanlon’s Razor during onboarding and reinforce it in team rituals like stand-ups and retrospectives.

3. Combine with Data

Use Hanlon’s Razor as a first filter, but back assumptions with data and thorough investigation.

4. Lead by Example

Demonstrate empathy in leadership decisions. Approach conflicts with curiosity, not judgment.

🎯 Conclusion

Hanlon’s Razor isn’t just a philosophical principle — it’s a powerful tool that can reshape how PMs navigate the intricacies of product development. By fostering empathy, encouraging collaboration, and focusing on solutions over blame, PMs can drive better outcomes for their teams and products.