Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Today's product development wants to be 'data-driven.' The focus is on quantitative methods to find product-market fit, usually by way of interviewing people who use the product, or interviewing people who represent majority groups that the org would like to see using the product. (Or, if we're brutally honest, attempting to triangulate info about one of these two groups from product surveillance data).

"Today's product managers contrast their data-driven approach with the 'I built this for me' approach we heard in interviews with founders from the 1990s. Despite its empirical strategic success, 'build for yourself' now gets cast as immature and shortsighted.

[...]

"In the 1990s, personal computers as a mainstream thing were brand new. That's when we get the paradigm-shifting 'visionary' internet successes like eBay, Google, Apple, Amazon, and eventually Netflix.

"You know where visionary ideas come from?

"Let's break this down, because I need you to see this.

"We describe ideas as 'visionary' when they break from majority logic to imagine a completely different future-one that serves currently unserved needs or poorly served needs in a completely new way.

"You know who has unserved needs or poorly served needs? Marginalized people. People that the current systems ignore or rebuff.

"Visionary ideas derive directly from centering people at the margins.

[...]

"Nowadays, of course, since rich, well-connected white men got to build the web from their dorms and parents' garages, they're already centered on it. Building for already-centered people doesn't produce visionary ideas. Tech has noticed, and so it has discounted 'build for yourself.'

"And THIS, my friends, is the false dichotomy.

"Product teams forget the context of the 'build for yourself' spirit that they discount in favor of data-driven decisions. And this has tragically obscured their potential for actual visionary work.

"Here's why: It's not 'building for yourself doesn't shift paradigms.'

"It's 'building for yourself doesn't shift paradigms if you are already the main character.'"

-- Chelsea Troy (heychelseatroy), "The Oxymoron of 'Data-Driven Innovation'", 2021-07-30 [The argument is clearer, including the need for real dversity&inclusion in hiring instead of just ticking boxes, if you spend fifteen minutes reading the whole thing.]

A good St. Andrew's Day to those who celebrate!