Recency of your product feedback matters

Recency bias has bad press in product management literature. But when it comes to product feedback, I actually believe it’s a good bias to have.

I’ll explain why but first what’s recency bias anyway? It’s a cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones. It's usually seen as a prioritization mistake, a trap in which product folks fall by unconsciously considering new ideas as more valuable than old ideas.

The thing is, new product ideas actually are more valuable than old ones, especially when they emerge from recent customer interactions (as they should).

We live in a fast-moving world. The idea you had three months ago was an idea on an older version of the world. In the meantime:

1. Your product improved. If you’re working on iPhone 14, does the feedback you received on iPhone 11 really make sense?
2. Your customers changed. Folks who gave you feedback that informed your product idea are maybe not even using your product anymore.
3. The market evolved. The world before ChatGPT’s launch was not the same as today’s AI-powered world, right?

So your new product idea is probably not that bad after all and you should have some room to prioritize it.

The other argument in favor of recency bias is that the speed at which you close the feedback loop with customers does matter. This is how folks respond when you’re fast at letting them know you shipped something they asked 👇

This is so important I wrote a piece about the feedback loop velocity, which I believe should become the new standard metric for product success. High feedback loop velocity is enabled by high sense of urgency when it comes to executing on customer requests. In other words, it’s enabled by recency bias 👀

If you want tips & tricks on how to close feedback loops with customers at scale, head to this blog post written by my colleague James.

In conclusion, recency bias creates a sense of urgency, which helps fight complacency and bullshit processes. Let’s embrace it instead of fearing it!