15. Learning, not failure
Once the hypothesis is written down, how can we make it safe for PMs to learn, take action, and talk about what they learned?
Context
PMs are writing down success measures for every feature they build, but they aren't attending to the results - instead, they're moving on the next thing.
My old boss Zach Nies teaches startups and growth companies about how to use the scientific method. In his courses he often shared the first minute of this lecture from the late physicist Richard Feynman:
Just watch the first
Zach always reminded us that learning happens when we compare our expectations to what actually happens. He also liked to share a Daniel Kahneman quote:
"Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish."
That is, if you don't write down your hypothesis before you take your measurement, you will just justify whatever happens as obvious and miss the chance to learn something.
So, how to help our PMs to learn from their experiments?