Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Common-knowledge effect: A bias in team decision making

nngroup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 59 posts

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

#31

Post by chongli »

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…

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

That might have been one of the goals but I doubt it was the only goal. Another reason for removing the headphone jack is dust and moisture ingress protection. It's difficult to achieve an IP67 rating in a phone with a 3.5mm TRS jack. This is due to the shape of the connector and the extra thickness you need to add to accommodate a jack with sealing rings. By switching to the lightning connector exclusively, Apple was able to achieve IP67 ratings in all their phones after the change.

This is a huge improvement for users because previously a lot of phones were being brought in for service showing liquid damage. Having your phone die due to dropping it in some water is a terrible experience that is now quite rare due to the IP67/IP68 ratings of modern phones.

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

#32

Post by geraldhh »

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.

> Anybody who tries to score points by pointing out weaknesses is toxic to open and honest collaboration.

probably well intended, but no.

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

#33

Post by hyperpape »

While interesting, their study has a weird relation to the headline claim. It’s not unrelated, but it’s not a demonstration of the claim (I don’t see that they measured the time teams spent discussing each statement), nor does it really a seem like a consequence of the claim.

So while I appreciate some of the reminders about decision-making it’s an oddly structured article.

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

#34

Post by PredictorX1 »

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.

Someone once said that "A hundred fools do not make one wise man."

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

#35

Post by egman_ekki »

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, […] not menstruating women.

Yup, like for example Mikaela Shiffrin who doesn’t take her fitness seriously [1]. Or Wimbledon tennis players [2]. Not like those young professionals…

1. https://time.com/6279881/periods-sports-gender-bias/

2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2023/07/05/wimbledo...

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

#36

Post by sltkr »

chongli wrote: post #31
sltkr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 That might have been one of the goals but I doubt it was the only goal. Another reason for removing the headphone jack is dust and moisture ingress protection. It's difficult to achieve an IP67 rating in a phone with a 3.5mm TRS jack. This is due to the shape of t…

Yes, you're right, there are technical benefits too.

Still, I think the primary reason Apple felt comfortable dropping the headphone jack while contemporary Android phone vendors didn't, was that Apple could afford to lose customers who didn't want to upgrade to AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones. What they lost in direct sales they would regain in brand reputation. That was about market positioning, not about engineering.

By the way, I just looked up some specs and my unfashionable Samsung Galaxy A52s with a headphone jack also has an IP67 rating, and it is the same thickness as Samsung's current flagship model, Galaxy S23, which doesn't have a headphone jack. Both devices are only 0.6 mm (7%) thicker than Apple's current flagship iPhone 15. So while I'm sure adding a headphone port incurs some engineering cost, I feel like this cost isn't insurmountably high, and it's not true that you can't have IP67 and a headphone jack at the same time.

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

#37

Post by robertlagrant »

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.

> Something was missing for half of the population: cycle tracking

Can a watch detect this? What does that add vs an app that a cycle is input into?

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

#38

Post by sanderjd »

oooyay wrote: post #30
wpietri wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah my problem is more similar to this. I get impatient pretty often, and I worry that I seem impatient, and that it makes the person I'm pairing with anxious about me rushing them, and then whether they're actually anxious about that or not, I'm still anxious about trying not to be impatient or at least not seem like I am.

This is a totally personal problem, and I've had pretty long successful periods of my career that I've pair programmed most hours of most days, and I do think it's a technique with a lot of advantages, but it really isn't my favorite thing to do because of this kind of dynamic.

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

#39

Post by notarobot123 »

dash2 wrote: post #25
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 simpli…

Participants were given a disproportionate number of positive statements for projects A and C so each participant may be biased towards a more positive interpretation of the somewhat ambiguous statements (sufficiently ambiguous to cause 20% of individuals to make different judgements without that initial bias).

Even if the information was interpreted consistently by each individual, the benchmark of success is still biased against collaborative decision-making. The possibility that the collective judgment is different, and perhaps better, is precluded by the assumption that the group should reach the same judgements as individuals.

If the group produced more balanced or well-informed judgements due to the distribution of expertise, would that be interpreted here as a failure of information efficiency and "decision-making quality"?

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

#40

Post by ttymck »

geraldhh wrote: post #32
wpietri wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Anybody who tries to score points by pointing out weaknesses is toxic to open and honest collaboration. probably well intended, but no.

You might want to elaborate
Post reply on HN