A Product Manager’s Worst Nightmare
What the Social Dilemma on Netflix can teach us
The Social Dilemma on Netflix is a devastating blow to the reputation of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other platforms.
It’s a crystal clear indictment on the negative impact, whether intentional or not that these platforms have had on our day-to-day lives.
I, like many others, quickly reacted by either changing settings on these applications or removing them completely.
Aside from the effect these products have had on the fabric of society, more interesting to me, is the impact on product management.
Product Manager’s Dilemma
When building a product, a product manager’s intention aligns with the organisation for whom they work. Usually, this is to make a user’s journey more “delightful”. In so doing, this will, of course, drive customer adoption, and revenue.
Additionally, each organisation is likely to have something in their ethos to the effect of “don’t do evil”.
At Google’s founding, one of its basic tenets was “Don’t be evil”. In 2015, they altered this to “Do the right thing”.
At every company at which I have worked, every motto has included a “Do Good” element.
So what happens when the product you are working on, potentially does “bad”?
When we work day-to-day to make our users’ experience better, or more seamless, we often think about our impact. Unfortunately, in many cases, as we see in the Netflix special, these product managers couldn’t have foreseen the negative impact their products would have further down the line.
Of course, there are some bad actors, people whose motivation is not wholly positive, but we will assume that this isn’t the standard case.
The best a product manager can then do in these negative instances is to perform a “post mortem” and try to pivot to a more positive impact. But more on this later.
The ideal situation to be in is where the team performs a “premortem”.
What is a premortem?
A premortem is a technique used in management but this case product management. It presumes the failure of the product or project currently being planned.
Once the team thinks about the failure of the product, they can discuss why it failed. What were the reasons, what were the unforeseen side-effects of the feature?
If done accurately, this can save a significant amount of work in rescuing a failing product further down the line.
It can also help foresee likely side-effects and allow the team time to remediate before it happens.
Why doesn’t it work in this instance?
Premortems work best when one can envision the likely outcomes. I have never managed a product that will impact 2 billion users. When working at such scale, it is impossible to tell how each user will react.
When working on a product that is at a smaller scale, one can do customer research and tailor the product to meet the customers’ requirements, while understanding the likely downsides of the feature.
At scale, companies rely on A/B testing, which builds statistical models for the users’ behaviour. These are also imperfect.
On the ropes
With the Social Dilemma now putting the ball squarely in the court of the leading players, (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), what should they do?
I believe that fundamentally, things will need to change.
- These organisations cannot continue to sow division.
- They can’t continue to spread disinformation.
- They can’t continue to be a cause for the increase of teen suicide and self-mutilation.
Each organisation needs to figure out what to do to resolve these issues. I would, however, suggest that when something as catastrophic as the Social Dilemma displays the damage your product is causing, the only thing to do is to pivot.
Undoubtedly, the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and others can figure out how to monetise, while still doing good.
So what do we, as product managers do?
Our role as product managers is to raise our voices. Become more acquainted with the ills of our products, understand what is going wrong, and fix it. No, it’s not a UX glitch or performance issue, it’s something more significant than that.
The challenge is that the conscientious product manager may not align with the organisation’s best interests. In this instance, the organisation will ignore the moral product manager, and at worst, push them out.
Eventually, the product manager will need to decide whether to continue to fight the cause from within the organisation or to get out.
It’s a tough decision to make, and one that each affected employee would need to make after weighing their options.
I have never been in that situation, and I hope I never will be. All I can say is that the Social Dilemma has awoken a consciousness about social responsibility that I will implement in my current and future roles.
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