Posts tagged "Product Mindset"

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The era of the augmented architect

3 min read

Product managers are evolving from process coordinators to augmented architects: AI-powered builders who own strategy and commercial outcomes.

The product management landscape of this year is defined by convergence: pressure to build faster (Vibe Coding), generate cash (Revenue Accountability), and prove value (Founder Mode). The "Product Management is dead" narrative is hyperbolic, but the role is changing. The administrative, process-heavy layer is dying: automated by agents or eliminated by Founder Mode flattening. The traffic cop model doesn't survive when AI generates working prototypes in minutes. What survives is the core function: value creation....
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Dead Time Is Story Time

3 min read

Waiting isn't friction to eliminate. It's captive attention begging for engagement. The best products turn loading screens into learning moments.

I stumbled on David Maister's 1985 research on waiting psychology while thinking about loading screens. His foundational principle: occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time. But he uncovered something deeper. Anxiety, uncertainty, and unexplained delays make waits feel exponentially longer. That got me thinking. Most product teams treat waiting as friction to eliminate. Load faster. Reduce checkout steps. Skip the queue. But you can't eliminate all dead time. Users will wait during loading, onboarding, checkout,...
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The Tool Spectrum is Collapsing

3 min read

Prototyping tools like Claude Code now serve both discovery and production, narrowing the gap between build-to-learn and build-to-earn.

Marty Cagan's recent piece on prototyping tools draws a clean line: build-to-learn tools on one side, build-to-earn tools on the other. He's right about the hype problem: product managers confusing high-fidelity prototypes with production-ready systems. But the binary he describes is already dissolving. The categorization reflects tool architecture. Lovable and Bolt for prototyping, Claude Code, and Cursor for production. UI-first tools abstract complexity and accelerate visual validation. Terminal-based tools expose code and configuration, giving engineers...
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Feature Factories Build AI Wrappers, Product Orgs Build Moats

3 min read

Everyone's racing to add AI features. Few are building AI moats. The difference determines who's still competitive in 18 months.

Every company can call the OpenAI API. Every developer can wrap Claude in a decent UI. Every product team can ship "AI-powered" features in a sprint or two. The hard part isn't adding AI. It's building something users can't easily replicate elsewhere. The Wrapper Trap Integrating GPT-5 or Claude takes a weekend. Polish the UI, tune some prompts, add it to your feature list. Congratulations—you've built what a hundred competitors can build in the same...
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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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From Project to Product Thinking

8 min read

A practical, no-hype guide for project managers moving into product roles — how to shift from delivery to discovery, unlearn old habits, and build learning loops that compound insight.

We shipped on time. Every dependency cleared, every stakeholder satisfied. The dashboards lit green. And then—nothing. Usage flatlined. The “big release” landed quietly, with customers politely ignoring it. This was several moons ago, early in my career. That was the moment it clicked for me: we had delivered perfectly, but we hadn’t delivered value. Scope, schedule, and cost were all managed flawlessly. But none of that mattered if the product didn’t change user behavior. That’s...
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The PM as Builder Era

2 min read

AI makes building faster, but not smarter. The new PM advantage is clarity, knowing what to test, why it matters, and how to learn fast.

The best product managers I know are not writing more specs. They are writing code. AI is changing what it means to build, not by replacing PMs but by removing the constraints around what they can try. When the cost of testing an idea approaches zero, the right move is not to plan more. It is to prototype more. Today, you can build five versions of a concept before lunch. You can wire up a...
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The Hidden Cost of UX Friction in Enterprise Systems

4 min read

Enterprise systems often rely on mandates, not UX. But small friction compounds into real business risk. Here’s why PMs can’t ignore it.

Following up on my earlier piece: Build, Buy, or AI-Build, in which I noted Marty Cagan's view that AI will not easily replace enterprise solutions, even in the age of “vibe coding.” His reasoning is sound: enterprise products are deeply embedded in intricate workflows, with business rules and integrations that can’t be swapped out overnight. Today, tools like Copilot or low-code builders tend to play a helper role rather than a wholesale replacement. But this...
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Love the Problem, Solution will Follow

6 min read

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Learn seven techniques to uncover customer needs and build products that create lasting impact.

When you’re building a product, it’s easy to get excited about the “how.” The sleek design, the advanced tech stack, the long feature list. But here’s the hard truth that separates great products from forgettable ones: don’t fall in love with the solution; fall in love with the problem. This mindset shift can be the difference between a product that thrives and one that just exists. Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour...
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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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