How to Apply Product Best Practices Mindfully
SUMMARY
While leveraging product management best practices such as personalisation, algorithmic decision making, big data analysis, or AI can lead to successful products, recent scandals like Cambridge Analytica, FTX, Amazon, and Theranos highlight the dark side of these approaches.
In this talk, we'll scrutinise a range of product best practices and delve into the pitfalls of overzealous application of product management best practices and explore sustainable, ethical solutions.
DESCRIPTION
In the world of product management, embracing innovation, automation, and the power of (big) data, algorithms, AI, scaling, and personalization is considered ‘best practice’. However, real success goes beyond immediate gains; it involves responsibility for long-term impacts on individuals, society, organisations and the environment.
Recent scandals and failures such as Amazon applying dark UX patterns, Cambridge Analytica, FTX or Theranos have shown that these best practices can easily have a nasty impact.
This talk commences with a range of examples to illustrate how product management best practices can be applied overly-zealously, and how this has led to not only companies going bust, but also major value destruction or even people ending up in prison or dead.
I will then analyse a number of well known product best practices in detail, demonstrate why they are useful, but also - using examples - illustrate what - unintended or not - negative consequences can easily arise, and most importantly how these can be avoided. So that ultimately we can benefit from these practices and the alue they can deliver, without being problematic.
TAKEAWAY
Participants in my talk will
Grasp the potential pitfalls of product management best practices
Recognise why an ‘ethical’ / mindful approach matters
Have seen examples of bad and ‘ethically’ challenged application
Have seen an an overview of common best practices, their pitfalls, and strategies for responsible design and implementation