For any difficult or high-impact product decision, we typically face a plethora of questions about what tradeoffs to make, what risks to take, how things might play out in practice, how this decision impacts our users, strategy, goals,...

Enter a thinking tool: Eigenquestions

For high-stakes product decisions, we need to step back & seek the Eigenquestion (creator: @shishirmehrotra).

The Eigenquestion is the question, which, if answered, provides the basis for answering most other substantial questions associated with this decision.

An Eigenquestion example for Netflix

TVOD=Transactional Video On Demand
SVOD=Subscription VOD

Problem:
Given catalog(TVOD) >> catalog(SVOD), should we offer TVOD content?

A super-complex decision!

The Eigenquestion:
Do we care more about catalog size or consumption friction?

One reason that Eigenquestions work so well is that they force us to better align our decision with our vision & strategy. A great reminder. So yes, "our catalog could be larger if we offered individually paid content to our members", but is that aligned with our vision & brand?

Too often, decision-making starts with a background on metrics/feedback/etc, is followed by a set of options (clearly 3 is best :) ), & lastly it presents the recommended option. The group then litigates the fine details of the presented information to try & arrive at a decision.

Since I first learned about Eigenquestions a few years ago, I now spend about ½ the time making sure we have the right question for the decision. And then the remaining ½ can be allocated to a discussion of the pros/cons of the options

It feels slow, but it’s faster (and better)

Combine WAYRTTD & Eigenquestions, apply them judiciously, and you & your team will be making significantly better product decisions that are more likely to stick. https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1292154613060104192

You can learn more about Eigenquestions (incl etymology & examples) in this post by @shishirmehrotra & @huddy
https://coda.io/@shishir/eigenquestions-the-art-of-framing-problems

Many thanks to @shishirmehrotra for feedback on the difficult exercise of fitting an Eigenquestion example in 280 chars

Happy decision-making!