IKEA Effect
Stakeholders overvalue the parts of a product they helped design — especially the parts that user research later says to change.
Why PMs should care
Co-creation has two sides, and most PMs only feel the good side until it's too late to undo the other one.
Involving stakeholders early gets you buy-in, alignment, and political cover for decisions that would otherwise take months of negotiation. It also makes those same stakeholders fiercely protective of their specific contribution — the button they suggested, the wording they drafted, the flow they 'helped think through' — even when user research later shows that contribution is hurting the product.
The fix isn't to stop involving stakeholders. It's to design the involvement so their ego becomes attached to the problem being solved rather than the specific solution they proposed.
'We need to reduce drop-off at step three, can you help us think about why?' is strong co-creation. 'Do you like this button copy?' is a trap that pays off six weeks later when you need to change the copy.
Example in product work
A CFO 'helped design' the onboarding progress bar in a casual workshop. It was their idea to show a specific percentage after each step and to label the final step 'Verification'.
Testing three months later shows two problems:
The percentage label increases drop-off — users see '67% complete' on step three and bail, feeling there's more left than there actually is.
The word 'Verification' at step five scares users who thought they were almost done.
Removing these two elements is a five-minute ticket for engineering and a six-week diplomatic incident with Finance.
The PM now has to navigate a conversation in which the CFO's self-image as a product-thinker is on the line. Plan for this in advance: when you take a stakeholder's contribution, document what they contributed to (the problem, the constraint, the goal) rather than what they specifically designed — so that changing the solution later isn't perceived as invalidating their contribution.
What to do when you see it
- Involving stakeholders early is great for alignment and political cover — and makes them fiercely protective of their specific contribution later.
- The fix isn't to stop involving them. It's to attach their ego to the problem being solved, not to the specific solution they proposed.
- 'Help us think about why users drop off at step 3' is robust co-creation.
- 'Do you like this button copy?' is a trap. It pays off six weeks later when the copy needs changing.
Sources & further reading
- The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love — Norton, Mochon & Ariely, 2012The original Harvard Business School paper that named and experimentally demonstrated the effect.
- The IKEA Effect — The Decision LabA practical explainer on why we overvalue things we've built ourselves.