Using The Digital IKEA Effect to Hack Team Productivity

Conventional wisdom says you need to reduce friction whenever possible. But does that mean you should remove it entirely? 🤔 When you roll out a new workflow, having your team put in a little extra work may actually increase team productivity in the future. I call it the digital IKEA effect. 🧠

The IKEA effect is a principle of consumer psychology that tells us why we assign more value to products we had a hand in creating, like your first KALLAX shelf. Basically, it says that when you spend the time and effort to make something yourself, you get more out of it. 🧰

We can apply this cognitive bias to software tools and #workflow management as well. By encouraging the active customization of important company processes, you’re giving your team the ability to build more #productive habits for themselves. 👩‍💻

It all comes down to self-assembly. Creating a personalized #workflow ensures that every member of your team will be able to work efficiently, whatever the task. Those efficiency gains are then distributed throughout the company when you share custom workflows w/ the team. 🦄

Here @Taskade we believe that the process of individual creation and knowledge sharing should be as fun and frictionless as possible. Teams are more inclined to engage with a product that doesn’t get in their way. ⚡️

We talk about how we use the digital IKEA effect in our own product and how it can impact your team in this article:

https://blog.taskade.com/2020/01/28/how-the-digital-ikea-effect-builds-sticky-team-habits/