(23) WRAP Framework of decision making for product managers -Part 1

There is no denying the fact that decision making defines most part of a product manager’s role. You are often made to take decisions that no one else wants to take but you also have to own up to the consequences of your decisions.

Rich Mironov in his book, The Art of Product Management, says:

“Executives are made to make decisions. A productive day for them must include making at least one decision a day.”

In short good product managers are good decision makers.

I once asked Amar Hanspal, Sr. Vice President, of Autodesk, a 2 Billion dollar company on my podcast on his models of decision making. This is what he said:

“Sometimes things are ambiguous, and you have to go about doing things that you believe in. You are never going to be a 100% right, so you have to comfortable with being wrong. You have to keep learning from the things that don’t go right so that over time you are more right that wrong.“

You can listen to the audio at the exact minute when he says that:

A few episodes before, I had Teresa Torres, renowned product discovery coach as my guest and she shared an important piece of advice on decision making. She said:

“Number one thing I would recommend product managers is to start keeping a decision journal. Whenever you are facing a key decision, write down what decision you made and why you thought was a good decision and at a later point when you have an outcome of that decision, write it down and go back and reflect on what you thought was going to happen and where were you right and where were you wrong. This is a very humbling experience because you are going to be wrong a lot of times but this is also going to improve your decision making”

Teresa strongly recommended to read the book Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath to learn about better decision making processes.

I picked the book soon after the episode and thank Teresa for recommending the book. It is mighty powerful and here is my summary of some of the frameworks the book talks about. I also have pinned the framework at my work desk to act as a constant reminder.

However, I must state it clearly that this summary can in no way be a replacement to the book. The book backs every concept with scores of real life examples. Hence, I urge you to pick the book for yourself.

I am splitting this article into three parts since there is a lot to cover.

The Four Villians to Decision Making

Before I share the WRAP framework, let me share the four villains of decision making that the book proposes.

Villian 1: Narrow Framing

Narrow framing is the tendency to define our choices too narrowly to see them in binary terms. Daniel Kahneman in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow describes the ease with each we draw conclusions. We are quick to jump to conclusions because we give too much weight to the information that is right in front of us, while failing to consider the information thats just offstage. This tendency is referred to as “spotlight” effect. A spotlight only lights a spot, everything outside is obscured. When we begin shifting the spotlight from side to side, the situation starts to look very different. Whats in teh spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make a good decision.

The author exhorts us to avoid the tendency to define our choices too narrowly and see them in binary terms. “We ask, “Should I break up with my partner or not?” instead of “What are the ways I could make this relationship better?” We ask ourselves, “Should I buy a new car or not?” instead of “What’s the best way I could spend some money to make my family better off?”

Villain 2: The Confirmation Bias.

Our normal habit in life is to develop a quick belief about a situation and then seek out information that bolsters our belief. And that problematic habit, called the “confirmation bias,” is the second villain of decision making. Researchers have found this result again that when people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.

““At work and in life, we often pretend that we want truth when we’re really seeking reassurance: “Do these jeans make me look fat?” “What did you think of my poem?” These questions do not crave honest answers.”

When we want something to be true, we will spotlight the things that support it, and then, when we draw conclusions from those spotlighted scenes, we’ll congratulate ourselves on a reasoned decision.

Villian 3: Short-term emotion (being swayed by emotion that will fade)

When we’ve got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn. We replay the same arguments in our head. We agonize about our circumstances. We change our minds from day to day. If our decision was represented on a spreadsheet, none of the numbers would be changing — there’s no new information being added — but it doesn’t feel that way in our heads. We have kicked up so much dust that we can’t see the way forward. In those moments, what we need most is perspective.

Villian 4: Overconfidence (having too much faith in our predictions)

The fourth villain of decision making is overconfidence. People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold. He backs it up with many examples the most prominent of which was about Dick Row, a talent scout who confidently rejected The Beatles because he believed that group music was out and four piece groups with guitars were finished. But Beatles with their stupendous success proved him wrong.

We have too much confidence in our own predictions. When we make guesses about the future, we shine our spotlights on information that’s close at hand, and then we draw conclusions from that information.

Summary

To sum up, if you think about a normal decision process, it usually proceeds in four steps:

• You encounter a choice.

• You analyze your options.

• You make a choice.

• Then you live with it.

There is a villain that afflicts each of these stages:

• You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options.

• You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving information.

• You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one.

• Then you live with it. But you’ll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold.

In the next two posts, I am going to share about the WRAP framework that counters each of these four villains.