The Forces Behind Product Decisions

In physics, centripetal force keeps an object moving toward the centre of its circular path. Centrifugal force, meanwhile, is the apparent outward force we experience from within that rotating system. Technically, it isn’t really a force at all. It is inertia when there isn’t enough centripetal force to keep the object on course.

I think product decisions can work the same way.

Some decisions are centripetal. They are pulled toward the evidence: product data, customer behaviour, adoption, retention, conversion, operational realities and business performance. You observe what is happening, understand why, and use that understanding to decide what should happen next.

Others are centrifugal. A competitor launches a feature, so we need it. A customer asks for something, so it goes on the roadmap. An executive has an idea, and suddenly priorities shift. A new technology becomes popular, so we find somewhere to use it.

None of these are necessarily bad decisions. The problem is what happens when momentum starts determining direction.

A roadmap can become a collection of perfectly reasonable decisions that, collectively, take the product somewhere nobody deliberately chose to go.

That is why I find the physics metaphor useful. Sometimes what looks like an external force pulling a product in different directions is actually the absence of enough centripetal force: not enough evidence, strategy or conviction to keep decisions on course.

But centripetal thinking shouldn’t mean blindly following the data either.

Data tells us what has happened. Product leaders sometimes have to decide what happens next before the evidence exists. Entering a new market, testing a new proposition or building something genuinely new will inevitably involve a degree of uncertainty.

The difference is whether we’re making a deliberate bet or simply following momentum.

A good product decision doesn’t always have to be the one the data is asking us to make.

Sometimes, the best product decision is the one that creates the data we need to make the next decision.

That, perhaps, is the real balance: not eliminating centrifugal motion, but making sure we always have enough centripetal thinking to know where we’re going.