Design Errors and Group Biases

In Part I of this examination of design errors, we noted that the consequences of design errors are sometimes favorable. We also explored groupthink and considered an example of how groupthink can lead to design errors. Groupthink is an example of a group bias — an attribute of the way groups function that can often lead to results that differ from the group's intentions.

Many group biases have been identified, and to the extent that they produce results at variance with group intentions, they can all lead to design errors that produce unexpected and unintended results. Here are three of them.

Group polarization

Group polarization is the tendency of groups to adopt positions more extreme than any of their members would adopt if acting individually. The phenomenon is consistent with a normalization effect that can occur when group members learn that the sense of the group is in general alignment with their own inclinations. Members then feel free to abandon reluctance and doubt with respect to their private judgments, and the result is a "hardening" of those judgments. More

For groups making design decisions, group polarization can suppress interest in alternatives, and any desire to search for or explore rare but important use cases. It can also lead to outright rejection of perfectly workable designs — a form of design error not often noticed, because rejected designs typically are not implemented.

Pluralistic ignorance

In pluralistic ignorance, group members privately reject a position, while they simultaneously and incorrectly believe that almost everyone else accepts it. They decline to voice objections because they feel that doing so is pointless, or because they misinterpret the positions of other group members. More

For example, consider a design that forthrightly concedes that it does not address a well-defined need of the customer population. All of the members of the group might have misgivings about failing to address the issue, but the group adopts the design anyway because all members believe (erroneously) that the others favor it.

Abilene paradox

Closely related to pluralistic Many group biases have been identified,
and to the extent that they produce
results at variance with group intentions,
they can all lead to design errorsignorance, the Abilene paradox applies when members of a group agree to go along with a group decision despite their private misgivings, mostly because of unpleasant imaginings of what the group might say or do if the member were to be honest about his or her misgivings. More

For example, a group can reach a design decision that none of its members support, because all of its members imagine that serious conflict — possibly threatening the group's ability to work together — would erupt if they were to express their honest objections to the proposed design.

Although all of these biases (and others) can lead groups to decisions their members do not support, the results can actually be positive. Some groups do well in spite of themselves. It's rare, but it happens.   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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