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MY PREFERRED PRODUCT MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES AND FRAMEWORKS

Strong product management uses clear frameworks for discovery, strategy, vision, roadmapping, alignment, and measurement. Methods like direct observation, Now-Next-Later roadmaps, and outcome-focused metrics help teams understand problems, prioritize effectively, and move toward a clear product vision.

UX ROUNDUP: OLD VS NEW UX | ADAM SMITH PREDICTS AI | AI VIDEO

Most UX guidance is still stuck in the pre-AI era, even though the future of design is increasingly shaped by AI-driven workflows, generative interfaces, and agent-based experiences. AI will reshape the economy, commerce, and media by making intelligence cheaper, commerce more autonomous, and content creation far more scalable.

BE HONEST IF GROWTH HAS SLOWED. IS YOUR PRODUCT STILL MAGICAL? IT PROBABLY … USED TO BE

Many SaaS products that once felt magical have become stale, and AI is raising the bar for what software must deliver. Companies must either reinvent their products with AI-native capabilities or accept slower growth and eventual decline.

WHEN BUILDING BECOMES CHEAPER THAN SPECIFYING, EVERYTHING CHANGES

AI has made building software prototypes far cheaper and faster, allowing teams to test ideas with real products instead of long specifications. As a result, organizations that build to learn quickly will innovate faster than those still optimized for planning before building.

ARE THEY SOFTWARE COMPANIES OR DO THEY JUST HAVE SOFTWARE PROBLEMS?

Many companies thought of as software companies actually use software only to distribute their real value, such as content, services, or networks.

143 MILLION POKÉMON PLAYERS ACCIDENTALLY BUILT A MASSIVE AI DATASET

Pokémon GO players unknowingly generated a dataset of 30+ billion real-world images through AR scans during gameplay.

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5 WAYS PRODUCT DISCOVERY BREAKS DOWN

Product discovery breaks down when companies fast-track “must-have” features and lack clear outcome-based goals. Evidence-guided discovery with shared metrics and measurable outcomes helps teams prioritize better ideas and avoid feature-factory behavior.

WTF DOES A PRODUCT MANAGER DO? (AND WHY ENGINEERS SHOULD CARE)

As AI reduces the cost of building software, the real challenge becomes deciding what to build, pushing engineers to adopt product management skills. The three most important are gathering context, tracking results through feedback loops, and communicating decisions in a way that drives action.

DANCING WITH PROBLEMS

Product problems rarely have a single clear definition. Teams must continually move between behavioral, contextual, and strategic perspectives to understand them. Product leaders create shared understanding by helping teams explore these layers together and refine the real problem over time.

WILL FEATURES EVEN EXIST? HOW AI IS FORCING SAAS TO RETHINK THE PRODUCT ITSELF

AI is eroding the traditional SaaS model built around predefined features. The real moat will shift to platforms that let customers generate and govern their own workflows securely and reliably.

research-backed solutions. Read the report.

HOW GOOD IS YOUR BACKLOG? HOW TO SHAPE THE WORK FOR PRODUCT SUCCESS

When backlog items feel too big or vague, the problem is usually poor shaping around customer needs, not just missing detail. Teams should shape work together through problem clarification, workshops, and spikes so they can learn faster, avoid handoff friction, and deliver value in smaller, clearer steps.

KILL YOUR DARLINGS (22 MINUTE PODCAST)

Flatlining products that generate some revenue but show no growth often block better opportunities. Product leaders must deliberately sunset them as portfolio decisions to free teams to discover the next source of growth.

VISHAL KAPOOR'S 10 RULES FOR BUILDING HONEST PRODUCTS WITH AI

AI can accelerate experimentation and prototyping, but building trustworthy products still requires human judgment, customer understanding, and first-principles thinking. Teams should use AI to explore ideas faster while prioritizing simplicity, transparency, and real customer value.

WHAT EXCELLENT GROWTH TEAMS SEE THAT OTHERS MISS (43 MINUTE VIDEO)

Great growth teams don't chase experiments or tactics. They identify and remove the real friction blocking users from getting value. Sustainable growth comes from deep customer understanding, faster learning, and compounding the insights that truly matter.

TRANSLATING

Product leaders should translate product metrics into clear financial impact when speaking with executives.

FINDING THE ROLE OF HUMANS IN AI PRODUCTS

As AI agents become increasingly autonomous, the human role shifts from doing tasks to supervising systems that do them.

See the full research (ungated) →

HOW GENERATIVE UI CUT OUR DEVELOPMENT TIME FROM MONTHS TO WEEKS

Generative UI builds interfaces dynamically using approved components, contextual data, and a trained language model instead of fixed layouts. When supported by strong design systems and guardrails, it can dramatically speed development and tailor software to each user's situation.

FORWARD DEPLOYED DESIGNER

AI enables designers to embed with teams and rapidly prototype real solutions, creating a new “Forward Deployed Designer” role. Small squads that combine design, engineering, and research can dramatically accelerate learning and product discovery.

AI MADE RELATIONSHIPS, NOT FEATURES, THE LAST DEFENSIBLE ADVANTAGE

As AI commoditizes features, competitive advantage shifts to the relationship products build with users. Context, history, and trust create switching costs that features alone no longer can.

THE INTERFACE WAS THE PRODUCT

AI removes interface learning but also removes the natural discovery that shows users a product's value. The new challenge is making capabilities visible and surfacing the right value at the right moment.

ORGANIZING PRODUCTIVE PLATFORM TEAMS

Platform systems reflect the structure of the organizations that build them. Effective platform teams reduce developer complexity by aligning teams to capabilities, defining clear interfaces, and evolving with the architecture.

SUMMONING THE COURAGE TO FOCUS

Strategy requires the courage to focus by rejecting many good ideas. Teams must build confidence through testing assumptions and gathering evidence to prioritize what matters most.

MACHINE LEARNING AT SCALE: MANAGING MORE THAN ONE MODEL IN PRODUCTION

At scale, machine learning shifts from optimizing a single model to managing many models reliably. The key is designing systems that stay available, fail safely, avoid data leakage, and include human oversight before models reach users.

THE AI-ENABLED ORG IS A VENN DIAGRAM

AI-driven development increases overlap between product, engineering, and other roles rather than replacing them. The future likely belongs to small, highly collaborative teams where disciplines intersect to deliver products faster.

INTERNAL PLATFORM TECHNICAL PRODUCT MANAGER (TPM) PATTERNS: PROS AND CONS

Organizations assign TPM responsibilities through dedicated TPMs, shared TPMs, Engineering Managers, or Staff engineers.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES IN SOFTWARE

AI is accelerating software commoditization, allowing competitors to quickly replicate features and erode market leaders.

📖 Read the whitepaper (free and ungated)

Read it to learn

* How to map pricing to value * How to treat pricing as a product * How to verify that you're ready for the shift to value-based pricing

EVERY PRODUCT STARTS IN OKLAHOMA

Early products succeed by attracting curious early adopters who are willing to try unfinished ideas. As they scale, they must shift to providing clear value and ROI to more skeptical mainstream customers.

SOFTWARE ISN'T DYING, BUT IT IS BECOMING MORE HONEST

Software isn't disappearing, but the old subscription model is fading. AI is enabling outcome-based pricing where companies pay for real results instead of seats or access.

WHY PRODUCT SENSE IS THE ONLY PRODUCT SKILL THAT WILL MATTER IN THE AI AGE

As AI tools become table stakes, product people won't stand out by using more tools, but by making better calls than AI can make on its own. The differentiator is product sense: empathy, foresight, strategy, taste in tradeoffs, and creative execution.

FORCE MAPPING: A TOOL FOR FIXING SYSTEMIC ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES

Organizations often mistake symptoms for real problems. Force Mapping reveals the underlying forces, behaviors, and beliefs shaping those symptoms so teams can target the root causes and run better experiments to improve the system.

STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT FOR PRODUCT TEAMS: SHOW YOUR WORK, DON'T SELL YOUR CONCLUSIONS

Product teams lose stakeholder battles when they present conclusions instead of their reasoning. Showing the discovery journey (outcome, opportunity, solution, and evidence) turns stakeholders into collaborators and builds stronger buy-in.

MINIMALLY VIABLE CONSISTENCY

Minimally viable consistency is about standardizing only what truly reduces coordination cost while preserving local flexibility. Be cautious during strategy shifts, avoid false standard frameworks, and treat consistency as temporary scaffolding that should expire once teams can operate without it.

SIX RULES FOR DESIGNING COMPANY GOALS

Goals should create clarity, not complexity. Focus on a few core metrics, choose one priority, assign clear ownership, declare what you will not do, and review progress regularly so the company learns what actually drives results.

THINGS YOU THINK ARE HELPING YOUR CAREER BUT ARE ACTUALLY HURTING IT

Many high performers unintentionally stall their careers by being overly helpful, quiet, and low-maintenance, which makes their most valuable work invisible. To grow, you must prioritize visible impact, communicate the problems you solve, and engage your manager with opinions and ambition so your scope expands rather than stays hidden.

PMS SHOULD VIBE CODE

PMs may not belong in high-risk infrastructure, but they can add real value by building internal tools and user-facing experiences where speed, taste, and usability matter most.

AMID NEW COMPETITION, CHROME SPEEDS UP ITS RELEASE SCHEDULE

Google will move Chrome to a two-week release cycle starting September 2026.

Watch the series →

SUBSCRIPTIONS WILL SURVIVE IN EXACTLY TWO PLACES