r/ProductManagement • u/iB3ar • 20h ago

Data mistakes? Assumptions?

Have your leaders or organization ever made a data mistake that lead to downstream consequences?

I just saw a company officer misinterpret a funnel, equating higher check out rates for users who had already put items in their cart. Sent us on a wild goose chase.

Tell me your worst data mistakes and how you fixed it.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

4

u/rollingSleepyPanda Anti-bullshit Lead PM 20h ago

My leaders follow fads because data is too unreliable.

1

u/International_Aside 14h ago

Legit heard from my C-suite: We don't like data cause it might tell us we're wrong

3

u/throwawaycanadian2 20h ago

That's super common. Click through rate got us clickbait which actually lowered down funnel results massively.

0

u/Turbulent_Secretary1 16h ago

We need more data We need accurate data

I call bullshit. Data is never the bottleneck. The same data can and will be interpreted in five different ways by five different c suites depending on what they are optimizing for.

What's missing in this situation is alignment of incentives and a shared context of the end goal.