Last year, I was working with a customer who was conducting usability testing on a new product prototype. As the test subjects were clicking through the prototype, several of them INDEPENDENTLY broached some really interesting insights into their offline behavior relating to this product. I was frantically scribbling down notes, thinking how this would drive some great differentating feature development for the customer.

When I got the “formal writeup” usability test results back, there was no mention of the offline behavior conversations. Why? Because it wasn’t on their original test script, and therefore, “not scientific”. Myopia utopia at its finest!

Ultimately it’s a PM’s job to understand their company’s situation and make a case by case decision based on the nature of what the company is trying to deliver.

Thanks for the comment. Facts and figures are necessary. Instinct (or much better, experience) is necessary, but neither on their own are sufficient. One needs to find a place between analysis paralysis and utopia myopia where facts/figures/data along with experience/instinct can optimize actions.

I often use the phrase: “We’re here to make decisions not calculations.” when encountering people who need more and more data.

On the flip side, the phrase: “We need decisions, not wild guesses” can be often applied as well.

Saeed

“You have facts and figures. But I have instinct.”

It’s always comforting to hear that the capabilities of animals lower in the evolutionary chain can trump a few millennia of human civilization.