Posts tagged "Decision Making"

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Infrastructure Redundancy Stops Before the CDN

3 min read

Three major outages expose the gap between multi-cloud architecture and actual resilience when CDN infrastructure fails.

Azure, AWS, and Cloudflare all experienced significant outages in recent weeks. Different providers, same story: configuration changes triggering cascading failures across infrastructure that's supposed to be resilient. The interesting part isn't that infrastructure fails. It's what gets exposed about the gap between architected resilience and actual resilience. The multi-cloud gap Companies might use AWS for one application and Azure for another, but any given application typically runs on a single cloud. Redundancy within that provider...
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AI Agents Multiply Work and Eliminate Jobs Simultaneously

3 min read

AI agents boost output but multiply review work while threatening entry-level jobs. Two patterns reshaping knowledge work simultaneously.

Traditional automation follows a script. You map the steps, define the logic, and the system executes. If-then-else at scale. AI agents are different. They have decision-making authority. You give them a goal, and they figure out the path, making choices on the fly based on context. That shift from scripted execution to delegated judgment changes what happens to your workload. What the data shows A recent study from Faros AI analyzed over 10,000 developers across...
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Goal Clarity Without Strategy Clarity Is Just Noise

3 min read

Enterprises repeat goals endlessly but skip strategy. In the AI era, that gap between knowing the destination and coordinating the route is existential.

The dynamic is shifting. AI tools let startups go from idea to credible prototype in weeks, not quarters. Technical execution gaps are narrowing. For enterprises, this changes the calculus. The advantages used to be resources, data, distribution, and customer relationships. Those still matter. But only if you can deploy them before the market moves. The real enterprise problem isn't speed It's coordination. Everyone knows the goal. "AI transformation." "Double growth." "Modernize the platform." Leadership repeats...
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Why Retention Starts at Onboarding, Not Growth

3 min read

Retention problems are created in week one, not month six. Product decisions about time-to-value determine long-term stickiness.

Most products lose 80% of users within 30 days. Teams see this happening and hand the problem to growth. They add email campaigns, push notifications, re-engagement hooks. None of it moves the number because the retention problem wasn't created in month six. It was locked in during week one. This isn't about better onboarding flows or slicker tutorials. It's about product decisions made before launch that determine whether users stay or leave months later. By...
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The Gap Between AI Adoption and Enterprise Value

4 min read

Two-thirds of organizations are stuck in AI pilot phase. The gap between adoption and enterprise value isn't technology—it's redesigning workflows.

Two-thirds of organizations are stuck in the pilot phase with AI. They run experiments, they test use cases, they see promising results—then nothing scales. McKinsey's latest State of AI report (November 2025) reveals the pattern: 90% of organizations regularly use AI, but only 39% report enterprise-level EBIT impact. The gap between adoption and value isn't a mystery. It's a choice. What the data shows The survey of organizations reveals three distinct clusters: Most organizations (nearly...
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How to Build Product Sense

3 min read

Product sense isn't magic—it's systematic practice. Learn how to build intuition through decision-making, user empathy, and pattern recognition.

Everyone agrees product sense separates good PMs from great ones. Nobody can define what it actually means. Here's the paradox: product sense feels like intuition, but it's built through systematic practice. It looks like magic, but it's earned through reflection, pattern recognition, and user empathy. The vagueness isn't because it's mystical—it's because it's contextual. What works in enterprise software fails in consumer apps. What matters in healthcare differs from fintech. But certain principles hold. Here's...
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Traffic Metrics Are Lying to You

3 min read

Webflow's AI search data reveals why aggregate traffic is misleading and what product teams should measure instead.

Your traffic is down. Your growth team is panicking. And your product metrics might be telling you absolutely nothing useful. Kyle Poyar's 2025 State of B2B GTM report uncovered something fascinating: Webflow's aggregate traffic is declining while their business is accelerating. ChatGPT referrals convert at 24% compared to 4% from Google. Two-thirds convert within 7 days. This isn't a Webflow-specific anomaly. It's what happens when AI search reshapes discovery. The death of aggregate traffic as...
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When Your Reports Become Your Customers

4 min read

Managers must add more value than they cost. Apply customer-thinking to direct reports: justify your existence through real services.

You call a meeting to "align on priorities." Your team spends two hours in a conference room. Decisions get deferred pending "more data." Everyone leaves to update their status decks for next week's follow-up. You just cost your team 10 hours of productive work. What did they get in return? If the answer isn't something concrete and valuable, you're net negative. And most managers are. I've been testing a framework inspired by Roger Martin's A...
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The Impact Scorecard

3 min read

A simple framework to evaluate product impact: map your work by customer value and business value to focus on what matters most.

It's surprisingly easy to stay busy without making much of an impact. A team ships features, hits sprint goals, and sees metrics move—but six months later, it's unclear what actually mattered. Not because the team wasn't working hard, but because "impact" is slippery to define. I've found it helpful to think about impact along two dimensions: customer value and business value. When you map your work on both axes, patterns start to emerge about what's...
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When the Cost of Delay Becomes Your Biggest Risk

3 min read

How product teams can avoid paralysis in the AI era by acting before the window closes and minimizing the cost of delay.

Blockbuster had every advantage—brand, reach, loyal customers. They saw Netflix coming and had the resources to compete. They waited too long. The window closed. Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975. They knew film was vulnerable. They protected margins instead of building the future. When they finally moved, others had already won. BlackBerry watched the iPhone launch and dismissed touchscreens as toys. They waited for validation. The window closed again. The pattern is clear: in...
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Rethinking Leadership Decisions through the Lens of Spotify’s Bets Board

3 min read

Spotify’s “bets board” shows how leaders can treat decisions as experiments. Here’s how to explore that mindset without copying the model.

I came across something recently that caught my attention. Spotify’s executives have banned the words “offline” and “later” in leadership meetings. At first, it sounds like a linguistic tweak. But it connects to a deeper idea about how they make decisions — through what they call bets. Twice a year, Spotify’s senior leaders hold a “bet pitch” cycle. Each executive brings a small number of proposals backed by data and conviction. They pitch them to...
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When to Trust Intuition vs. Metrics

3 min read

Intuition is a compass, metrics are a map. Here’s how product managers can decide which to trust, depending on the product stage.

This is a follow-up from an earlier post on the limit of metrics. Product managers often wrestle with a familiar question: Should I trust the numbers, or should I trust my instincts? The truth is, both matter — but their weight changes depending on where your product is in its lifecycle. Intuition plays a bigger role early, while metrics take over later. Knowing when to lean on which can be the difference between chasing noise...
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The Limit of Metrics

4 min read

Metrics measure the present, but intuition imagines the future. Here’s why great product managers need both — and how to define intuition.

Product managers love metrics. Dashboards, OKRs, funnel charts — these tools are everywhere. They give us a sense of control, objectivity, and accountability. But metrics have limits. They can only measure what already exists. They tell you how a current feature is performing, but they can’t tell you what to build next. This is where intuition comes in. What Intuition Really Means in Product Work In product management, “intuition” often gets dismissed as gut feel....
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Outcomes Over Outputs For Real

7 min read

How to make outcomes real, align cross-functional teams, and still give leaders confidence with a dual lens scorecard, DORA metrics, and probabilistic forecasts.

Everyone in product circles nods when we say we focus on outcomes, not outputs. It sounds right. It signals maturity. Yet when the sprint boards fill up and deadlines loom, many organizations slip back into outputs, features shipped, story points burned, demos completed. The intent is good, but the execution gets hijacked by the process. There is so much to unpack here, I'm expecting several more posts in this series. Let's set the table first....
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One Question Every Product Manager Should Ask in Roadmap Reviews

2 min read

A simple question can sharpen roadmap reviews: what will this feature replace in the user’s life? Here’s why the replacement lens matters.

Roadmap reviews tend to focus on timelines, dependencies, and long lists of features. These discussions are important, but they often miss a single clarifying question that can cut through the noise: What will this feature replace in the user’s life? Asking this question changes the framing. Instead of thinking about what a feature adds, the conversation shifts to what it displaces. Users don’t have unlimited time or attention. Every new feature competes with something they...
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Why Empathy, Not IQ, Defines Success in the AI Age

3 min read

Empathy and critical thinking—not IQ—are the keys to thriving as a product leader in the AI era.

Walk into any workplace today, and you’ll see AI embedded in daily tools and workflows. It drafts emails, generates reports, and even proposes design ideas. What it can’t do is sit across from someone, understand their frustration, and respond with care. That distinctly human capacity is becoming the true differentiator. Carnegie Mellon professor Po-Shen Loh puts it bluntly (video): “The only sustainable trait in the age of AI is the ability to care about people...
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Making Product Decisions with a Bets Mindset

3 min read

How leading product teams use betting principles to make smarter decisions, test ideas fast, and adapt quickly to real-world results.

When you build products, you’re making bets — not certainties. The best product teams don’t pretend to know the answer or wait until all data clears the fog. Instead, they “think in bets.” That means approaching each decision like a poker player, not a chess grandmaster. Most people treat product roadmaps as if they’re a set of sure things: follow steps A, B, and C, and you’ll win. But real product work faces incomplete data...
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Making Better Product Decisions

2 min read

Great product leaders know not all decisions are equal. Learn how to apply the one-way vs. two-way door lens to improve decision speed and quality.

Great product leaders aren’t defined by their roadmaps, but by the decisions that shape them. Roadmaps shift. Markets change. But decision quality compounds over time. One useful lens comes from Jeff Bezos: the idea of one-way vs. two-way doors. One-way doors are irreversible. Once you step through, it’s costly to turn back. These require deliberation, diverse perspectives, and often leadership involvement. Two-way doors are reversible. If the decision doesn’t work out, you can step back...
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Defeat Bias: Build Products that Truly Matter

6 min read

Learn how to defeat confirmation bias in product management with eight practical techniques to improve decisions and build products that truly matter.

When you’re deep in product work—dreaming up features, refining flows, or debating the next roadmap bet—there’s a sneaky force that can derail even the most well-intentioned efforts: confirmation bias. It’s a natural human tendency. You form a belief, and suddenly your brain filters reality through a lens that only shows evidence supporting that belief. Contradictory data fades into the background. In product development, this can be deadly. You may convince yourself you know “the next...
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The Questions Great Product Leaders Ask

2 min read

Great product leaders don’t rely on perfect foresight. They ask sharper questions that cut through ambiguity and lead to better decisions.

Great leaders aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones who know which questions matter. Nowhere is this truer than in product decision-making. When facing ambiguity, strong product leaders resist the urge to rush into solutions. Instead, they slow down just enough to ask sharper questions that cut through noise. A few that consistently elevate decision quality: Do we have the expertise to make this decision? If not, who needs to be in...
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