Out of the FOG: A Non-traditional Research Approach to Alignment
Summary
Key Insights
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Research is often perceived as slow but actually enables faster product velocity by clarifying decisions.
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Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (analytical) thinking both complement each other in decision-making.
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Expert intuition requires regularity, practice, and immediate feedback to be reliable, conditions rarely met in novel product contexts.
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Organizations mature in information processing by adding departments: starting with intuition (product teams), then data, and finally research teams for deeper analysis.
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Product teams often over-rely on intuitive thinking, leading to overconfidence and misalignment.
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Grinding momentum is a shared team pressure to move fast without adequate foundational knowledge, risking poor decisions.
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The FOG method (Facts, Opinions, Guesses) helps teams slow down, separate evidence from assumptions, and surface knowledge gaps.
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Facilitated FOG sessions enable democratic participation, uncover tensions, and establish shared mental models for product direction.
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Research should be positioned as a partner in knowledge creation rather than an arbiter of absolute truth, shifting power dynamics.
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Dealing with bad data or assumed facts requires active researcher intervention to analyze artifacts and reframe discussions constructively.
Notable Quotes
"Slowing down with research can help us move faster overall."
"Intuition is knowing without knowing how you know, I just know it."
"Expert intuition can be right or wrong because it relies on cues and heuristics in uncertain contexts."
"Research is the most analytical form of information processing because it involves active knowledge generation."
"Most product decisions look intuitive, but intuition alone leads to coherent stories that can be wrong."
"Research is sometimes perceived as intuitive and therefore dismissed as insufficient for decision-making."
"Grinding momentum is a shared mental model that pushes teams to decide quickly without shared foundational knowledge."
"The FOG method helps teams separate facts from fiction and move past hangups toward alignment."
"The goal is to turn research into a partner in shared discovery, not just an arbiter of truth."
"If a stakeholder claims something is a fact without evidence, it is our responsibility as researchers to challenge and unpack that."
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