Product Development Exam 1 Vocabulary Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering team dynamics, design thinking, decision-making biases, root cause analysis, and multicultural team collaboration.

Emotional Intelligence Factors

The four main components of emotional intelligence: Self-awareness, Social awareness, Self management, and Relationship management.

Team Stages

The five developmental stages of a team: Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Brainswarming

A problem-solving approach where top-down goals are broken down and bottom-up resources are listed until they meet, overcoming limitations of traditional brainstorming.

Curse of Knowledge

A cognitive bias where an individual incorrectly assumes that everyone else has the same knowledge they have.

Confirmation Bias

The human tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information that matches what we already believe while ignoring facts that challenge those views.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to take personal credit for successes (internal factors) while blaming outside forces for failures (external factors).

Fundamental Attribution Error

The cognitive bias where a person attributes another person's bad actions to bad character, but attributes their own bad actions to a tough external situation.

Halo Bias

A cognitive bias in which a positive impression of a person, brand, or product in one specific area influences opinions about them in unrelated areas.

Anchoring Bias

The tendency to rely too heavily on the very first piece of information encountered (the anchor) when making decisions.

Cognitive Dissonance

The mental discomfort felt when an individual's actions and beliefs do not match.

Parable of the Boiling Frog

A concept illustrating how people often fail to notice slow, negative changes in jobs, relationships, or life until it is too late.

Primacy Bias

The cognitive tendency to better remember, pay attention to, and be influenced by information presented at the beginning.

Recency Bias

The cognitive tendency to better remember and pay attention to information that was presented most recently.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut that makes people judge the likelihood or frequency of an event based on how easily clear examples come to mind.

Group Attribution Error

A cognitive bias where people incorrectly assume that a group's final decision or a single member's behavior reflects the true personal beliefs of every individual in that group.

Functional Fixedness

A cognitive bias that restricts a person from using an object in any way other than its traditional, intended purpose.

Design Fixation

A cognitive bias where creators get stuck on an initial idea, an existing example, or a familiar trend, which blocks them from exploring new solutions.

System 1 Thinking

Fast, automatic, intuitive, and unconscious thinking that runs continuously and requires little to no mental energy.

System 2 Thinking

Slow, deliberate, analytical, and conscious thinking that demands intense mental focus, concentration, and energy.

Planning Fallacy

A cognitive bias where people underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future tasks while overestimating their benefits.

Groupthink

A phenomenon where a group of people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions because they value harmony and agreement over critical analysis.

Communication Best Practices

Six key practices for effective group communication: Information Manager, Focus on unshared info, Consider alternatives one at a time, Suspend initial judgment, Discuss goals and how they can be reached, and Build trust and familiarity.

Design Thinking

A five-step process consisting of: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype, and 5. Test.

5 Whys Exercise

A root cause analysis method involving 5 steps: 1. Clearly define the problem, 2. Ask why it occurred to identify immediate cause, 3. Continue asking why to dig deeper into true cause, 4. Examine answers to pinpoint root cause, and 5. Create an action plan.

Faulty 5 Whys Exercise

A flawed root cause analysis that usually occurs when stopping too early at a symptom, accepting guesswork instead of facts, or blaming people instead of fixing broken processes.

Overconfidence Bias

A cognitive error where a person's subjective confidence in their own ability, judgment, or knowledge is higher than their objective accuracy.

Escalation of Commitment

Also known as the sunk cost fallacy; continuing to allocate resources to a decision or project based on past cumulative investment despite negative outcomes.

Mental Models

The concepts, ideas, and worldviews in your head that help you simplify complexity, solve problems, and make decisions.

Rules of Engagement for Global Team Meetings

Guidelines for multicultural team meetings where fluent speakers dial down dominance, less fluent speakers dial up engagement, and team leaders balance for inclusion.

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures using the standards, values, and beliefs of one's own culture as the benchmark or best practice.

Collectivist Culture

A culture where society at large has priority, creativity is viewed as disruption, and conformity is rewarded.

Individualistic Culture

A culture focused on personal freedom, recognition, promotion, looking after one's own interests, and being free from pressure to conform.

Hierarchical Culture

An organizational structure with many levels and large pay differentials, supporting individual performers and recognition differences.

Egalitarian Culture

An organizational structure with fewer levels and small pay differentials, supporting equal treatment, cooperation, and sharing knowledge.

Direct Communication

A communication style where the burden of understanding is placed on the speaker, who is comfortable with confrontation and being blunt.

Indirect Communication

A communication style focused on saving face and avoiding uncomfortable situations for both the speaker and the listener.

Framing Bias

A cognitive bias where information or questions are framed in a specific way to influence the respondent's answer or perception.

Decision Fatigue

Mental exhaustion and worsening quality of choices that occurs after making many decisions over time.

Abilene Paradox

A group decision-making phenomenon where an individual puts aside their personal view to support a consensus that no member actually desires.

Group Polarization

A phenomenon where an individual's existing view becomes more extreme after group discussion.