Making Design-by-Committee Work

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Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved James A
Rosen I’m James A Rosen. The “A” is important. James Rosen is a Fox News contributor. I’m not. Sometimes I have a beard, or a mustache, or a pig-nose. Sometimes my avatar is my cat, Whiskey. I’m “jamesarosen” pretty much everywhere on the Internet.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee I work
for Fastly, where I help make the Internet faster.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee I used
to work for Zendesk, where I helped turn this interface…

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee into this
one. Our engineering team worked side-by-side with the product managers to ﬁgure out what wasn’t working for our growing customer base. We went out on customer visits, prototyped, and built an entire new UI. We ended up shipping one of the ﬁrst production Ember.js applications. Today I’ll be telling you what I’ve learned about doing design work in groups from this and other experiences like it.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved What You’ll
Learn Starting with Empathy for the User The Importance of Emotional Intelligence Mental Biases in Groups Parallel Thinking Tips to Boost your Creative Team

Empathy for the User When people think of “Design by
Committee,” they often think of “Featuritis.” Teams will cram every feature in in an eﬀort to appease every possible customer.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee The Pontiac
Aztec has earned a spot on many “worst cars of all-time” lists. But why? It’s pretty practical. It was never plagued with mechanical problems or recalls. Critics thought it was priced too high, but that alone doesn’t make for a “worst car.” No, it was poor design process that made this beast a non-seller. GM used committees and focus groups to design the Aztec.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee The focus-groups
said it should have cooler for a center-console, so it does.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee They said
the back should fold out into a tent, so it does.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee When I
think of software featurits, I think of Microsoft word and its 5 toolbars.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee or 28
toolbars

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee I also
think of Eloqua. It’s chock-full features a marketing team might want. But the app follows few standard patterns, which makes it unintuitive. It doesn’t teach you how to use it as you go.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee Us Them
Custom Templates ✓ ✕ SSL / TLS ✓ ✓ Audit Log ✓ ✕ De-‐Widgetizer Widget ✓ ✕ Frobulators Unlimited 0 Cat Tuesdays ✓ ✕ This sort of software looks great on paper or in a PowerPoint presentation. It’s less nice for the actual users.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee Stanford Design
Process The cause is simple: the people running the project jumped right into the middle of the process. They failed to empathize with their users. They solved a problem, but they didn’t solve the right problem.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Goal Donor
& Gold Owner This is often because of a conﬂict between the “goal donor” — the person who sets the agenda — and the “gold owner” — the person who pays for the product.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee Even if
you need to consult the purchasers of enterprise software (say, the CTO), make sure you take time build empathy with the actual users. Visit them. Watch them work. Read — or even solve — support tickets. Build personas.

Emotional Intelligence

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Why Do
We Want Emotional Intelligence? “Groups are most creative when their members collaborate unreservedly. People stop holding back when there is mutual trust, rooted in emotionally intelligent interactions.” -Druskat & Wolff

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved What Is
Emotional Intelligence? “The ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” -Salovey & Mayer

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved How Do
We Build Emotional Intelligence? “Mindfulness is the foundation of emotional intelligence.” -Mark Coleman

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee There is
a diﬀerence between I am frustrated and I feel frustrated. Mindfulness helps us experience feelings without letting them take control.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee Quick Meditation
Let’s try a quick meditation now. You can close your eyes if you want. Think about the emotions you’re feeling right now. Maybe you’re feeling anxious about giving a talk later today. Or frustrated with a coworker. Or energized by the conference. One way we can understand our emotions better is to focus on their physical eﬀects. We’re going to do a body scan and simply acknowledge how our bodies feel. Start by bringing your attention to your feet. Are they sore? That’s OK. We’re not trying to change anything — just feel. Now to your calves… your knees… your thighs. How does your stomach feel? Do you notice any tension? Now bring your attention to your chest. Is it tight? Is your heart beating fast? Whatever your body is doing is OK. Your job is simply to notice and acknowledge what is happening. Think about your arms and your hands. Now walk your attention back to your back… your shoulders… your neck. Now your jaw; maybe you, like me, carry stress there. Bring your attention to your eyebrows, then your forehead, and ﬁnally your scalp. Well done!

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee If you
want to learn more, I highly recommend Search Inside Yourself by Google’s Jolly Good Fellow, Meng. He does a wonderful job summarizing recent neuroscience research and showing practical meditations that let you take advantage of that knowledge. Just 100 minutes of meditation — 10 minutes a day for less than two weeks — has been shown to change the way the brain works.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Benefits Engage
more honestly and creatively in groups Help others navigate groups better Build more emotionally engaging products Bonus:

Cognitive Biases

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee In 1979,
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a paper on Prospect Theory — how people make decisions under uncertainty. In 2002, they won a Nobel Prize for that work. And ever since, bookshelves have been awash with volumes on behavioral economics.

© 2015 All rights Reserved Design by Committee I mean
awash.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Cognitive Biases
Egocentric Bias Planning Fallacy Dunning-Kruger Effect Framing Effect Bias blind spot So I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve come across some of the following cognitive biases: • Egocentric Bias: we think other people are like ourselves • Planning Fallacy: our estimates are bad because we’re bad at combining probabilities • Dunning-Kruger Effect: unskilled people overestimate their ability • Framing Effect: drawing different conclusions from the same data based on how it’s presented, like a 90% success rate vs. a 10% death rate for a surgery • Bias blind spot: the ability to see cognitive biases in others’ behavior, but not in one’s own, resistant to introspection Many people think that working in a group will help them overcome these cognitive biases. “Two heads are better than one,” they say.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Egocentrism &
Availability “I think most people would prefer the navigation on the left.” “Everybody is switching to native on mobile.” Groups do help mitigate some of these biases. If you have a diverse group, their egocentric biases will tend to cancel out.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Planning Fallacy
& Overconfidence “As soon as I get the requirements from Marketing, it’ll just take a week to design and implement.” “I’d say we have a 95% chance of making our Q3 numbers.” “OK, so Claire will write a spec, then Rakesh will do few designs, then we’ll all meet to discuss, pick an option, and I’ll code it.” But groups exacerbate other biases. People in groups avoid talking about failure cases, making estimation even worse.

Cascade Effects There are also biases that occur only in
groups. Cascade eﬀects can exert tremendous pressure on people’s thinking. For an example, let’s turn to some research that was done with mock trial juries.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Mock-Trial Verdicts
In one mock trial, jurors 1, 2, and 3 endorsed a verdict of second-degree murder both privately and in the straw vote. Juror 4 had voted not guilty and indicated the highest level of conﬁdence in his choice on the pre-deliberation private ballot. What did juror 4 do when confronted with three second-degree murder verdicts? He paused for a second and then said, “Second degree.” Juror 7, an undecided vote, suddenly spoke up and asked, “Why second degree?” The researchers saw a deer-in- the-headlights expression ﬂit across juror 4’s face before he replied, “Oh, it’s just obviously second degree.”

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Gender &
Cascade Effects Men self-censor more on stereotypically feminine subjects like fashion. Women self-censor more on stereotypically masculine subjects like sports.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Recommendation Avoid
ordered events early in the process. State the problem, design independency for 10 minutes, post ideas simultaneously, then collaborate.

Common Knowledge Focus

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Focus on
“What Everybody Knows” Group discussions emphasize broadly-shared knowledge. If someone raises a point of contention, the group might deliberate brieﬂy, but will often then put the topic aside. This results in “hidden proﬁles” — accurate understandings of the world that groups do not uncover.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Recommendation Create
a process by which “cognitively peripheral” people — people who have some sort of diﬀerent perspective — share their knowledge. For example, you might invite people from other teams or even customers to design reviews and retrospectives and actively solicit their opinion during the discussion.

Contention & Loss of Focus

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Lateral Thinking
There is a well-known problem called Duncker’s Candle Problem. Subjects are given matches, a box of push-pins, and a candle and are asked to attach the candle to the wall. Most subjects focus on pinning the candle to the wall somehow. What they don’t see is that the box is a tool they’ve been given, not just a container for the pins.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Socratic Dialogue
A: We need a way to indicate fields that have errors. B: Red border? C: Conflicts with focus B: Red label? A: Well, that’s hard for some users to see. C: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Later, de Bono went on to study how groups solve problems. He was particularly concerned with the sort of Socratic Dialogue that many groups use. It’s a very confrontational way of working. These sorts of back-and-forth discussions often have two signiﬁcant bad results: 1. people get more annoyed 2. the group loses its focus, digressing on some small detail

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Parallel Thinking
— Process State the problem — “Indicate fields with errors” Propose a solution — “Add a red boder” Everyone lists pros Everyone lists cons Everyone lists ways to mitigate cons He suggested a new process, called Parallel Thinking.

Boost Your Team

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved What Makes
a (small) Team Smarter? IQ of members ✖ Group satisfaction ✖ Group cohesion ✖ Group motivation ✖ More women ✓ Likely related to social sensitivity Some recent research published in the Harvard Business Review looked at what makes small teams smarter. They tested groups on brainstorming, decision making, and puzzle solving. Any guesses as to what was correlated with higher performance?

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved 30 Circles
One creativity-priming exercise I really like is called 30 Circles. Everyone takes 60 seconds to use as many of the 30 circles as possible. Draw whatever you like. Art skill doesn’t matter. Just try to use as many as possible.

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Use My
Line Use My Line is a similar exercise. The goal is to improve your ability to build oﬀ of other people’s ideas — to enhance remix. The ﬁrst person draws a little squiggle…

Final Process

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Process Meditate:
10min/day, 2 weeks Talk to users of the product Prime Creativity Generate ideas independently Reveal simultaneously Remix Analyze critically

References & Further Reading

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Bibliography •
Atwood, Jeff. The Pontiac Aztec and the Perils of Design by Committee. http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-‐pontiac-‐aztek-‐and-‐the-‐perils-‐of-‐design-‐by-‐ committee/ • Brown, Tim. Tales of Creativity and Play. http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play • Druskat, Vanessa Urch and Steven B. Wolff. Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups. https://hbr.org/2001/03/building-‐the-‐emotional-‐intelligence-‐of-‐ groups • Friedman, Ronald S, Ayelet Fishbach, Jens Förster, and Lioba Werth. Attentional Priming Effects on Creativity. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/ 10.1080/10400419.2003.9651420 • Hadjihabib, Amir. Design with Zendesk. https://hadjihabib.exposure.co/design • Kelley, Tom and David Kelley. Three Creativity Challenges from IDEO’s Leaders. https://hbr.org/2013/11/three-‐creativity-‐challenges-‐from-‐ideos-‐leaders/ • Kolko, Jon. A Process for Empathetic Product Design. https://hbr.org/2015/04/a-‐process-‐for-‐empathetic-‐product-‐design • Kolko, Jon. Make Enterprise Software People Actually Love. https://hbr.org/2015/02/make-‐enterprise-‐software-‐people-‐actually-‐love • Miron-‐Spektor, Ella, Miriam Erez, and Eitan Naveh. To Drive Creativity, Add Some Conformity. https://hbr.org/2012/03/to-‐drive-‐creativity-‐add-‐some-‐ conformity • Salovey, Peter and John D. Mayer. Emotional Intelligence. http://www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence/EIAssets/EmotionalIntelligenceProper/ EI1990%20Emotional%20Intelligence.pdf • Seelig, Tina. Insight Out. http://t.co/aSCBgikQh0 • Sunstein, Cass and Reid Hastie. Making Dumb Groups Smarter. https://hbr.org/2014/11/making-‐dumb-‐groups-‐smarter • Tan, Chade-‐Meng. Search Inside Yourself. https://siyli.org/resources/#book • Wikipedia. Pontiac Aztec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Aztek • Woolley, Anita and Thomas W. Malone. Defend Your Research: What Makes a Team Smarter? More Women. https://hbr.org/2011/06/defend-‐your-‐ research-‐what-‐makes-‐a-‐team-‐smarter-‐more-‐women • Wu, Michael. The Future of Enterprise Software Will Be Fun and Productive. https://community.lithium.com/t5/Science-‐of-‐Social-‐blog/The-‐Future-‐of-‐ Enterprise-‐Software-‐will-‐be-‐Fun-‐and-‐Productive/ba-‐p/25486

Design by Committee © 2015 All rights Reserved Image Credits
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/83633410@N07/7658225516 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_problem#/media/File:Genimage.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#/media/File:Gold_Bars.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Solo#/media/File:Solo-‐2010-‐bos.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury#/media/File:The_Jury_by_John_Morgan.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Aztek#/media/File:Pontiac-‐Aztek.jpg • http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/ • http://vandewerk.nl/brainboost-‐kickstarting-‐a-‐brainstorm/ • https://www.flickr.com/photos/83883944@N07/7681417044/ • https://www.flickr.com/photos/bagsgroove/7025571489 • https://www.flickr.com/photos/foundanimalsfoundation/8055192650 • https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahakabmg/3948240339 • http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2006/10/in-‐praise-‐of-‐the-‐pontiac-‐aztek/

Making Design-by-Committee Work

Making Design-by-Committee Work

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