Commitment devices — how they can help you form positive habits
Have you ever heard of ‘Feb Fast’, ‘Dry July’, or ‘Ocsober’? These three alcohol-month puns are charity events where people tell all their friends that they are going to stop drinking alcohol for a whole month, and then solicit for donations to a charity. Why are these fundraising events tied to a task? Why don’t they just say, I’m going to eat a big burger, please donate?
Apart from being a good reason to raise money, these events are examples of people using a commitment device. They are committing to achieve a goal (no happy juice) and then not only socialising it with everyone, but also fetching donations to add extra pressure to meet their goal.
But it’s not the only commitment device. A commitment device is something that humans use to restrict their future decision-making ability and commit to something difficult. This means acting now to try and assist (or prevent) you doing something later.
Commitment devices are often used in business where one company will make a decision that will restrict their future actions. Their competition, seeing this commitment will then be restricted in the actions it takes when responding.
Commitment devices from history
A classic example of a commitment device comes courtesy of Odysseus, who tied himself to the mast of his ship so that he couldn’t jump overboard when he heard the singing sirens.
Another oft-cited historical device was utilised by the famous military general Han Xin. When deciding where to manoeuvre his troops for engaging in battle, he chose a location where his men would have a river to their backs. Crazy strategy, right? By placing his troops in this way, he gave them no option of retreat and thus their option was only to win at any cost.
Similar strategies have been employed by other famous military leaders throughout history, including William the Conqueror and Hernán Cortés, who both ordered their ships burned to remove any thoughts in their men’s minds of backup escape plans.
Commitment devices in everyday life
People often broadcast their intentions as a commitment device. A smoker telling their friends they are going to quit for real this time, someone who commits to writing an article a week on LinkedIn, a child who promises their parents they will get straight ‘A’s if they are allowed to watch YouTube every night. Putting our choc-chip cookies in a small jar, on the top shelf of the cupboard, behind all the healthier snacks is also used by many in an often-futile attempt to eat more healthily.
A popular, yet extreme commitment devices for saving money is the home loan. By locking yourself into a 30-year mortgage, you have signed yourself up to regularly putting money aside every month to buy a house. The peculiarity of the whole situation is that you’ve already actually bought the house and during the early period of your loan your cash is all going to interest and barely paying off the house at all. The real secret to the home loan as a commitment device is exactly the fact that you’ve already spent your money before you’ve earned it. There is no pressure on you to squirrel a few dollars under the bed every day, but when that bank manager knocks at your door and threatens to take your house, you decide that avocado doesn’t taste that good anyway.
Encouraging your users to commit to your app
Commitment devices are especially with products that promote positive human behaviour. For example, installing a fitness app on a smartphone.
The hardest part of the commitment devices is encouraging people to take it up in the first place. The freemium model of app monetisation is particularly relevant here. For example, let’s imagine someone who is looking to get into better shape for the summer. They’re not totally motivated to this goal but are willing to maybe give it a go and see what happens. The commitment device for them could be the fitness app, which will encourage them and send them notifications when they miss a workout. If we’re the publisher of this app, we want to reduce as many barriers as possible to getting them started in the app — so we make it free. Later, when they’re hopefully committed to the app and their pursuit of a healthier body, we can then start promoting premium features and encouraging them to swipe their credit card.
Experimentation as a commitment device for product managers
Some of the most popular methods for testing hypotheses can also double as commitment devices for your product team.
A ‘Painted Door’ is an experiment where a company gives the illusion that it has built a product or feature to understand their market’s interest level in such a feature. A ‘painted door’ might be a ‘Download now’ button that only takes the visitor to a registration form that says, ‘Sign up and be the first to know when this feature is ready.’ A painted door can act as a brilliant commitment device for a team who sees demand for a product that they still haven’t built.
A ‘Wizard of Oz’ experiment takes its name from the famous movie, where (spoiler alert) the almighty Wizard is really just a little man pulling some levers behind the scenes. This experiment is commonly used to test if and how people would use a feature, without product teams spending much time to build it all in its entirety. The feature is constructed with ‘gum and pipe-cleaners’ and there is often a lot of human intervention behind the scenes to make it work. If the Wizard of Oz feature proves popular, then the team has a huge motivation to spend the time and build the whole thing out properly.
Commitment devices are everywhere
Everywhere we turn we can see commitment devices that we’re utilising to (hopefully) improve our lives. Just like the process of habit formation, these devices work best when they require less of us but at regular intervals. The more we use a particular device, the less we need it.
The key lesson here is that these devices are not just things that we let happen to us by accident. Indeed, we can deliberately set out to create one and use it to achieve a particularly tricky goal. As product managers, we can harness the power of the commitment device to not only motivate our users but also to motivate our own product teams.
