Move Over, Product Manager: Introducing the Behavioral Product Manager

Have you ever wondered why some apps and websites feel like they’re almost reading your mind? This doesn’t happen by accident; it’s the work of good product managers. Traditionally, they’ve relied on their instincts when designing products. But instincts are often wrong.

Now, imagine a different kind of product manager who doesn’t guess. Meet the behavioral product manager (BPM): they use the science of human behavior and experimentation to figure out what people actually want from their technology. It’s a shift from a guessing game to relying on solid evidence about human behavior.

The results of this new approach are… dare we say ‘promising’? Here are just a few impacts that behavioral product management has driven in our work:

1. A 14% increase in retention rates for Google AdWords users
2. An 18% increase in recurring transfer setups for CreditKarma
3. $1M+ in savings for Digit users through our SMS-based interventions 

Those stellar results? They wouldn’t have happened if we had taken a traditional PM approach. We know this–it’s why these companies hired us in the first place. Their traditional approach had failed to deliver.

Now that you know the benefits of being a behavioral product manager, you’re probably wondering: ‘How do I become one?’

The first step is to understand the differences. Let’s dive in.

Behavioral PMs vs. Traditional PMs: What’s the Difference? 

When you look closely, you’ll see a number of key differences between behavioral PMs from traditional PMs:

1. Traditional PMs build for a persona or the ideal customer behavior rather than the actual user behavior. They don’t fully internalize the power they have over the user and see them as an engine to drive product metrics.
   
   Behavioral PMs know that their users do not have fixed preferences. They know their users make different decisions depending on the design and context of an experience.
2. Traditional PMs develop solutions based on economic theories that assume users are completely rational. For example, traditional PMs assume users are logical and do not acknowledge that people have difficulty making choices that benefit their long-term self-interest. Traditional PMs do not appreciate the power of framing and context to drive behavior change.
   
   Behavioral PMs are aware that human behavior often differs from the perfect scenarios described in economic theories. Behavioral PMs understand that humans have systematic irrationalities. They seek to understand these irrationalities and build for them. For example, behavioral PMs know that users make different decisions if they are deciding for today’s self (now) or tomorrow’s self (future me). Another example is that behavioral PMs understand that habit formation is extremely tough. They know that it’s much easier to have the user make a one-time decision that automates their usage and value extraction than to insert their product into the user’s life on a daily basis and ask them to log in/perform a new action every day.
3. Traditional PMs inundate the user with information or features, without any assistance or help, because they believe the user has enough time and expertise and also wants to make most decisions by themselves. They assume the user prioritizes their product as much as they do.
   
   Behavioral PMs are not afraid to be paternalistic. They understand that giving users all the choices and information can be burdensome rather than welcome. They believe it’s their job to make decisions easier and this sometimes means making decisions in the best interests of the user.
4. Traditional PMs focus on generic and short-term product measures over behaviors. They value the act of logging in or time spent and not what someone does when they log in. For example, it is common to hear traditional PMs say they want users to view their dashboard. Traditional PMs value exposing their user to information vs. having the user act on that information.
   
   Behavioral PMs are ruthless about identifying and prioritizing a key behavior — what uncomfortably specific action they want the user to do (rather than a generic action like ‘log in’*). For example, if they are building an online education platform, they may define the ideal key behavior in concrete terms like, “Add online course schedule to their calendar, right after signing up for the course” or “Get to min 30 or 40 in their first online course.”
5. Traditional PMs create arbitrary personas like “soccer mom” and segments by demographic rather than mindset. A bad product manager does not facilitate a behavioral mapping process with the team. They think about changing attitudes and beliefs over changing the details of an environment in which someone makes a decision.
   
   Behavioral PMs create a behavioral map of all the decisions that a potential and current user must do to reach the key behavior. The map zooms into each step and every detail of the whole process. They use their detailed map to gain a shared vision of the problem and prioritize product and feature opportunities. They meticulously document the barriers that a user currently experiences. They do this with a combination of observation, the behavioral map and data. They constantly ask the team what barriers can they remove and what benefits can they amplify. They are deeply worried about small frictions within the process and ruthlessly remove them. They build and articulate powerful benefits that increase a user’s motivation to overcome hurdles. They prioritize features that add immediate, concrete and hedonic benefits to using their product, so long as these also align with positive long-term value for the customer.
6. Traditional PMs do not conduct a literature review prior to writing product requirements. They consistently let original qualitative research, and instincts, drive prioritization on the roadmap.
   
   Behavioral PMs will assume they are not the first person to identify a customer insight or product opportunity. When investigating a new problem, they will not start with original research or new features. They will seek out existing academic literature/case studies to not reinvent the wheel. Behavioral PMs will question their own intuition on the problem and solution — and their team’s intuition. When someone says “we tried that before and it didn’t work” they will ask to see the data as proof. They will not reference their personal experiences as justification for a feature request. Behavioral PMs will listen to customer interviews and focus groups but remain skeptical that people’s attitudes, beliefs and perceptions will translate into actual behavior. Behavioral PMs are constantly thinking about the “say/do” dilemma.
   
7. Traditional PMs do not print out designs when they are reviewing them. They scan them for the aesthetic but don’t ask the designer to defend the copy, visual elements or benefit framing of their designs. A bad BPM does not care if their team is worried about the details.
   
   Behavioral PMs do not wait until the end to write copy. They understand the role of copy in driving mindset and framing. The product must work hand-in-hand with the copy. They instill in their designers an unwavering aesthetic for simplicity and ease. They ask designers to justify every additional step, choice and decision a user must make.
8. Traditional PMs do not use data-driven insights to drive their research agenda or product prioritization.
   
   Behavioral PMs understand that behavior is hard to change. Because of this, they seek proof that a feature/change will produce the intended results. A BPM is religious about experimentation. A BPM uses experimentation to understand why something works or doesn’t work, which gives them confidence to build a long-term roadmap and strategy from the results.
9. Traditional PMs put off building testing frameworks and capabilities into the core functionality. They reference their own or their network’s experience as proof that a feature or idea is worth prioritizing. They get surprised when the logging doesn’t work or the key outcome can’t be measured without more engineering work.
   
   Behavioral PMs will prioritize logging and testing infrastructure — the tools for understanding — over new product features. In fact, they will likely choose to delay a launch in order to put in a testing system. Behavioral PMs promote a team culture that is unforgivingly meticulous about data integrity, test methodology and tracking actions the user takes in the product. Behavioral PMs will have a data / logging QA process they follow rigorously. They never launch a feature without first testing that the data collection works as specified.
10. Traditional PMs compromise on the experimental control in favor of short term business results. They keep a test running until it gets to statistical significance vs. declaring a target sample size.
    
    Behavioral PMs are ruthless about the experimental control condition. Once they decide to invest valuable resources to conduct an experiment, they do not compromise on the experimental design. They insist that the control must isolate the key variable, even if it degrades the customer experience. They understand they are trading off a small number of current customers for an improved experience for future customers.
11. Traditional PMs do not think about the difference between correlation and causation. They frequently and confidently misattribute feature changes to causation (the new feature worked because of our design) when there was no controlled experiment to show this.
    
    Behavioral PMs ensure random assignment and avoid self selection. Everyone in the experiment should be equally likely to end up in the control group. When relevant, they ask their data team to double and triple check the randomization to ensure it’s truly random.
12. Traditional PMs do not articulate the experimental conditions and detailed hypotheses to the design and engineering team. This results in multiple revisions and meetings (and possibly future resentment of experimentation given how much time it takes).
    
    Behavioral PMs document the experimental conditions such that design and engineering understands the key question and hypothesis. They publish the team’s hypothesis on which version will win, their assumptions on sample size, conversion, effect size and how long the experiment will run. They ask the data team to publish their data analysis plan prior to launching.
13. Traditional PMs do not celebrate a null result and the fact that they saved the company money by not over-investing in an ineffective feature.
    
    Behavioral PMs package and promote both successful and failed experiments so the rest of the company (or public) can learn from the investment. They believe in systematic results reporting and are unafraid to loudly communicate lessons learned from “failures”.
    
14. Traditional PMs consistently prioritize short-term growth metrics.
    
    Behavioral PMs use their powers to bring positive value to their customers’ lives. This is simple but will be controversial when practiced. A BPM works to change the behavior of their users in order to deliver on the company’s mission for customer wellbeing (assuming the mission is positive … tobacco companies need not apply). Behavioral PMs resist manipulating the irrationality of the human psyche to extract more money from customers for less value. Behavioral PMs differentiate between short-term and long-term value. For example, if Zynga succeeded in getting me to play games for five hours a day, they may have provided me short-term value (otherwise I wouldn’t keep playing). But they may not be delivering long-term value. Humans act differently when making decisions for short term/today’s self and long term/tomorrow’s self. Because of this, a good behavioral PM would measure the long-term impact of heavy game play and whether it corresponds to positive wellbeing for their users.
    
    Bad behavioral PMs use powers to take money and time from their users, without concern or prioritization of positive user value. Bad behavioral PMs use their powers for evil.

In summary, behavioral PMs contribute significant value-add to product design teams, on top of what a traditional PM would. Behavioral PMs bring a behavioral science perspective to product design and have been trained to conduct experiments with rigor.

Great. Now how do I become a BPM?

We at Irrational Labs developed a wide range of resources to help you kick start your BPM journey. Here are some resources to get you started:

1. Explore our case studies to see behavioral design in action 
2. Join one of our 8-week, on demand online bootcamps:
   • Looking for the perfect all-around course? Look no further than our Behavioral Design Bootcamp.
   • Work in banking, fintech, insurance, or a related field? Our Behavioral Design for Finance specialization is for you.
   • Work in healthcare? Our Behavioral Design for Health specialization is tailored to your needs. 
3. Hire our expert team of behavioral scientists to train your team. Our expert team has worked with leading companies like Google, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Uber, Intuit, and hundreds more. Join their ranks.

Are you ready to reap the benefits of taking a behavioral PM approach on your product design team? You don’t have to do it yourself. We help companies solve their toughest challenges. And also make small changes that drive a huge impact. Curious? Let’s chat.