is your 'insight' trivia?

PMs use the word "insight" for correlations, opinions, and anecdotes with good posture.

I have watched people tweet a pattern as an insight, drop the word into a strategy doc, or use it in a meeting to make a claim sound settled. I have done it too.

Bob: "Developers don't need a CLI command for scaffolding an app because they can clone the sample app from GitHub."

Me: Have we tested both flows for friction? Have we spoken to developers who clone the repo and turn it into a workbench?

Bob had no qualitative or quantitative data. Under pressure, he cited one large customer.

We tested the flow. Most developers paused while deleting files they could not identify. Two abandoned the sample and started from scratch.

The mechanism was specific: developers lost momentum because they had to reverse-engineer the sample before they could build. We used git worktrees to create a minimal starting point and wrapped it in a CLI command.

Bob's claim pointed toward a feature. The mechanism changed how we built it.

my manager called it trivia

At Appsmith, I noticed that users who completed onboarding retained at a higher rate. I packaged the correlation as a discovery and told my manager I had found an insight.

He replied:

"This is not an insight. This is trivia."

He was right. I had narrated a pattern and skipped the cause. His feedback changed the way I hear the word in product reviews.

a working definition

An insight explains the causal path between an observation and a behavior. It predicts what a change will do and gives the team a reason to choose one path.

I use a shorter definition: an insight identifies a mechanism that forces a decision.

I test a candidate against three properties:

1. Predictive power. It tells you how X and Y should produce different outcomes.
2. Surprise. A reasonable person could have expected another result.
3. Mechanism. It explains the cause behind the observed pattern.

The third property does most of the work.

Consider the onboarding correlation. Users who finish onboarding may retain because the flow teaches a mental model. Shortening it could hurt retention.

The same users may retain because finishing the flow selects for high intent. Removing onboarding could leave retention unchanged while improving activation.

One correlation supports two opposite decisions. The mechanism tells you which experiment to run.

keep asking until the cause changes the plan

Start with the observation:

Adoption drops at step three.

Ask why. The form takes too long. Ask why that causes abandonment. Users expected value before committing effort because the earlier steps promised an instant result.

That cause changes the plan: show the result before asking for the form.

Then ask "so what?" A mechanism should change what the team builds, stops, or tests. If the roadmap stays the same, you have an observation or hypothesis.

find two plausible explanations

Useful insights often begin with two explanations that both fit the evidence.

I used to believe developers wanted full configurability. While dogfooding an SDK in a sample app, I paused over another configuration option. I wanted to start building and the option made me stop.

Configurability served developers who wanted control. It slowed developers who wanted momentum. The missing variable was the developer's goal in that moment.

That distinction changed the product question from "Do developers want configuration?" to "Which developers need control here, and which need a default?"

You can repeat the process:

1. Write two explanations for a result that does not fit your expectation.
2. Gather evidence that separates those explanations.
3. Name the decision each explanation would support.

The conflict between the decisions tells you what evidence matters.

insight should cost you something

A useful insight can take away an explanation you wanted to keep. It may invalidate the roadmap, expose a competitor you dismissed, or turn the harder option into your job.

That discomfort comes from losing certainty. An "insight" that confirms the plan and requires no change deserves extra scrutiny.

Teams avoid this because the mechanism can create a difficult conversation with leadership. The observation sounds neutral. The decision has an owner and a cost.

fake insights produce plausible roadmaps

Teams fill roadmaps with features that make sense and move no metric. They ship, blame timing or execution, and leave the original claim untouched because it sounded rigorous in the document.

Smart teams build mediocre products this way. They accept pattern narration as evidence and leave the cause untested.

Correlations, anecdotes, and opinions belong in the room as raw material. Before calling one an insight:

• state the mechanism;
• predict what X and Y would change;
• name the decision it forces.

Use "observation," "hypothesis," or "hunch" until you can do all three. Those labels tell the team how much confidence the claim has earned.