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Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

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Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#21

Post by sltkr »

growingkittens wrote: post #6

Familiarity is a huge factor in decision-making. Apple, a multi-billion dollar company, made the Apple Watch to track your health. Something was missing for half of the population: cycle tracking. No decision maker was familiar enough with women's health to understand the importance of aligning cycle information with other health information.

People keep repeating this story, but is there any real evidence to support that this was actually an oversight, and not a deliberate decision?

Apple has a long history of making decisions that seem to go against what users want, like removing the headphone jack, and making a wireless mouse that can't be used while charging. Both of these decisions were made deliberately and intentionally.

For the headphone jack, it was about establishing Apple products as high-end products for fashionable people who can afford to buy accessories like AirPods. Unfashionable people use outdated black Android phones with cheap wired headphones. Removing functionality that is primarily used by unfashionably users is a brand decision, not an oversight.

The story about the Apple mouse is really the same: if Apple allows the mouse to be used while charging, lazy people will leave it on the cable most of the time, and then it looks indistinguishable from a $5 USB mouse. That's not good for Apple's brand.

So finally back to Apple Health and the Apple Watch: I can easily imagine that Apple omitted period tracking intentionally to position these products as aimed at young professionals who take their health and fitness seriously (a fashionable group), rather than "menstruating women” (an unfashionable group).

Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#23

Post by growingkittens »

sltkr wrote: post #21
growingkittens wrote: post #6

Familiarity is a huge factor in decision-making. Apple, a multi-billion dollar company, made the Apple Watch to track your health. Something was missing for half of the population: cycle tracking. No decision maker was familiar enough with women's health to understand the importance of aligning cycle information with other health information.

People keep repeating this story, but is there any real evidence to support that this was actually an oversight, and not a deliberate decision? Apple has a long history of making decisions that seem to go against what users want, like removing the headphone jack, and making a wireless mouse that can't be used while charging. Both of these decisions were made deliberately and intentionally. For the headphone jack, it…

> I can easily imagine that Apple omitted period tracking intentionally to position these products as aimed at young professionals who take their health and fitness seriously (a fashionable group), rather than "menstruating women” (an unfashionable group).

Maybe Apple should put out a statement saying that "We did this on purpose because professionals don't have to worry about menstruation." That would clear things right up.

Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#25

Post by dash2 »

notarobot123 wrote: post #15

> Project statements were distributed unevenly This seems to be comparing the effects of the distribution of mostly positive information about two bad projects with the distribution of mostly negative information about one good project. The source of the stated bias cannot be concluded without isolating for the effects of the other variables and this study seems to be lacking significant permutations of information s…

Both of those would indeed be possible mechanisms. But the point is that an efficient team would be able to share its members' private knowledge. After all, they all have the same goal, and they all know that all the information is (by assumption) true.

It's probably true that you'd expect private knowledge not to be 100% shared in the real world. But the effect size is surprisingly large, especially in such a simplified setting. Literally, the teams in the private info treatment could have just said "let's all write what we know down on paper and share it", and they'd have been in the same boat as the other treatment!

Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#26

Post by dash2 »

BinRoo wrote: post #11

This study is comparing individuals having complete knowledge vs. a team with individuals having incomplete knowledge. Yes, the communication complexity tax must be paid. What am I missing?

You are missing the following statement: "If each team member is provided with all project statements, then the team can match the decision-making effectiveness of an individual (which is about 80%)."

I.e., they are comparing privately-informed teams with publicly-informed teams, not with individuals. They just simplified the exposition.

Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#27

Post by dash2 »

owenpalmer wrote: post #16

Does anyone actually believe that teams make better decisions than individuals?

These guys do: https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcs.11...

"Researchers have compared the strategic behavior of groups and individuals in many games: prisoner's dilemma, dictator, ultimatum, trust, centipede and principal–agent games, among others. Our review suggests that results are quite consistent in revealing that group decisions are closer to the game-theoretic assumption of rationality than individual decisions."

Do you believe that there is a single right answer to your question, so that teams always make better decisions than individuals, or alternatively always make worse ones?

Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#28

Post by Aloha »

ranting-moth wrote: post #22

There is a grain of truth in it when they say that the IQ of a team equals the IQ of the most intelligent team member divided by the number of people in the team.

I have a similar 'rule of crowds' - for any group over three, their collective intelligence drops by 1/3rd for every person added.

Re: Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

#30

Post by oooyay »

wpietri wrote: post #12
asimpletune wrote: post #9

I think this might be one reason why pair programming can be difficult at times. I’ve personally found success in pair programming, but it usually came after adopting an attitude of moving past the stuff we know and trying a more free, humble approach. This isn’t the best way to put it, but for lack of better words just starting with the mentality of admitting that it’s ok not to know what to do next and that we’re h…

Yeah, I think of this as the locker room effect. If you're not used to it, undressing in a locker room can feel scary. You're naked! But once you get used to it, you realize everybody is naked and it's fine. But that's conditional on everybody not being jerks. Anybody who tries to score points by pointing out weaknesses is toxic to open and honest collaboration.

Scary I think is one thing, and I certainly think some people feel exactly this. Other folks I think struggle with maintaining this very direct but neutral voice that works well in pair programming. One that reflects curiosity, scrupulousness, and empathy all in one voice. Others I think struggle with the idea that it's more difficult to control the image people see when they're so rawly exposed to people.
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