“The famine is over! The curse be damned!! Hit the nuclear button! Mayo have won the All-Ireland!!” An all-time great sports commentary moment from Stephen Grealis and Martin McHugh on Mayo’s Midwest Radio. #gaa

Teams must do their part to become empowered. During Groupon's hyper-growth phase, we formed teams to support operations drowning in manual processes. Our team wasn't the expert. So we shadowed our internal customers, learned their problems, and defined how we'd measure progress.

Empowerment in product teams doesn't happen by stepping back. A company formed new squads and gave teams a lot of freedom. The teams became overwhelmed and totally lost. Progress stalled. Their biggest issue wasn't desire. It was setup and support.

Empowerment in product teams is both coveted and rare. Everyone wants it. Few attain it. Product teams want more ownership, but they aren't trusted by leadership. Leaders don't want to micromanage, but it feels too risky to let go. Both sides want the same thing. Neither knows how to get there.

The secret of building any new habit or process is starting with a small change. Celebrate that you did it, come back the next day and do a little bit more — if you are ready.

David Dack@daviddack88.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Most beginners don’t hate running. They hate the pace they keep choosing. That’s the uncomfortable part. A lot of people quit in the first two weeks not because they’re lazy, weak, or “not built for running.” They just start every run like they’re being chased.

Time to refresh the accounts you follow by hitting "follow all" on ALL THREE 🦋 starter packs...follow 300+ product managers in 15 seconds go.bsky.app/9UvJJ6g go.bsky.app/GCjK7ya go.bsky.app/HgZVU3P

A bunch of us — (44!) — just spent a while writing a new manifesto. Think Agile Manifesto, but for building things in the age of AI. This is the Makers Manifesto makersmanifesto.org

Makers Manifesto — Principles for making great products

Core principles for how to make great products in an AI-driven world, created by a global group of cross-disciplinary experts and operators.

makersmanifesto.org

I love remote work, but it can be isolating. • Get outside, even for coffee/food/a short walk • Join communities (e.g. @chiprodalliance.bsky.social) • Exercise & find hobbies separate from work, ideally with others This can be better, if you take care of yourself! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

How does remote work affect isolation and mental health? We drew on five nationally representative surveys of American workers (N = 588,322) conducted from 2011 to 2024, omitting the peak pandemic yea...

science.org

The more I work in product and with product teams, the more convinced I am that people should spend more time talking to customers. All our internal rituals and debates to build are useless if your features don't resonate with your customers. You may be smart, but you aren't them.

This captures concerns I have about developing too quickly with AI. - “Product builders” skip important critiques from UX and engineering - Most teams have never been good at evaluating & iterating after launches And: big launches have more variables & thus are harder to evaluate. If they try.

Pavel@spavel.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Agile software development rests on one key principle: we ship code quickly in small chunks, so that we can learn where we got it wrong and fix it as fast as possible. But what happens when that loop is embedded in a system that makes it functionally impossible to report anything but total success?

Overcommitment in product teams is insidious. It leads to predictable compromises: PMs skip discovery, designers skip exploration & user testing, engineers optimize for velocity over understanding. Many teams end up with more goals than people. Everyone feels harried. Actual progress is slow. 1/3

Hello friends I’m on the lookout for my next client I’m looking for part-time/full-time projects and I can help you with - front-end development / architecture - design systems consultancy & development - design tokens integrations, set-ups, tooling - front-end archeology www.alwaystwisted.com

Always Twisted - Design Systems & Front-End Consultant

Hi, I’m Stu Robson, a Design Systems consultant and front-end developer helping teams create scalable, accessible systems that enhance collaboration.

alwaystwisted.com

Which of those features met a customer need? Which did not? Good luck telling the difference. But it’s “easier” if they just assume they had a 100% success rate because smart people told AI what to crank out. Think this is going to build a winning product?

Jason Gorman@jasongorman.bsky.social · 4mo ago

400+ features shipped in a week. That totally happened, and those users are definitely real.

What pisses me off is that if a COO asked me to justify the ROI of teaching teams to work in smaller batches with faster feedback loops, I can easily point to real, measured impact on release cycle times and change lead times. More throws of the dice for the same investment, basically.

introduce yourself with ten bands you’ve seen live UB40 Fine Young Cannibals U2 Sting Grateful Dead The Other Ones Ziggy Marley Mana Eagles Herbie Hancock

Asia Hoe@asiahoe.com · 4mo ago

introduce yourself with ten bands you've seen live Gym Class Heroes Pussycat Dolls Black Eyed Peas Janelle Monáe x2 Eric Nam G Dragon The Internet Little Dragon Yukimi Gallant

Early in my career I got a strong performance rating. My boss said "you're doing great, keep it up" and that was it. I walked out proud yet frustrated. I had no idea what the next level looked like or what it would take to get there.

The Arsenal. Your Premier League champions.

Happy Dave Brubeck Day for those who are more into jazz than Star Wars.

Zoom experience: • Wait for new version to install; no visible improvements • Dismiss message that I am the host of my own meeting • Dismiss Zoom notetaker I never choose • Admit AI notetaker I always invite • Turn off video of my AI notetaker All with unique UI patterns. Many times daily. Grrrr.

I think most people would prefer this. #Science

Love this Fermi quote at the end: “There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.”

Jason Cohen@asmartbear.com · 6mo ago

“The most exciting phrase in science isn’t ‘eureka,’ but rather, ‘that’s funny.’” --Isaac Asimov We’re tempted to jump to conclusions after seeing a “funny thing.” Instead, use as a theory that you actually test first:

It's the weekend in some time zones, go follow some soccer nerds

Yes and… • Invest in their growth • Give them stretch opportunities • Remove obstacles from their path Talented people need great leadership too.

Most product teams are stuck in reactive mode — saying yes to everything or chasing the next big bet. The result is a roadmap that's happening TO them rather than coming FROM them. The fix: building your plan. New post 👇 www.buildcrescendo.com/blog/own-you...

When Your Roadmap Happens to You: How Product Teams Can Take Back Control — Crescendo Product Group -- David Jesse transformation and leadership coaching

Most product teams are stuck in reactive mode. Learn how to build a focused product plan — across vision, org, measurement, and roadmap — that drives real outcomes instead of endless activity.

buildcrescendo.com

Although RICE scores are relative, there is a massive disconnect: For many teams the "confidence" scores range from 50% for low up to 100% for high. The success rate of features without iteration is usually closer to 20%, and not enough teams iterate. www.buildcrescendo.com/blog/overcon...

Your team is probably getting feature assumptions wrong without knowing it—here's how to change. — Crescendo Product Group -- David Jesse transformation and leadership coaching

Most product features fail to deliver expected results, yet teams rarely measure outcomes. Learn why overconfidence hurts product development and how to build better processes

buildcrescendo.com

Something is nagging me about how product teams are responding to AI coding-driven productivity. More development capacity doesn't reduce the need for product sense. If anything, it amplifies it. Teams are producing more and filtering less, at exactly the moment when filtering matters most.

imagine if your heuristics for buying a train ticket were that the train has to be fast, new, and clean, but did not include "is going to the right place"

Pavel@spavel.bsky.social · 7mo ago

People tell me that AI code is fine, because you can run automatic tests. But tests can only tell you if code is doing the thing you want it to do. To know what it SHOULD do, we used to have requirements. But now requirements are themselves vibe-coded slopotypes. The result: waste and risk.

The new bottleneck for most products won’t be coding but evaluation post launch: data collection or even sales cycles. Solving for these means maximizing the success rate of launches by understanding customer problems deeply. This isn’t new to PM but now is more important than ever.

When execution is cheap, those without discipline will overbuild and have cluttered experiences. Rigorous discovery, post-launch evaluation and iteration will be even bigger advantages. Most teams are bad at these and fast coding will make that worse, not compensate for this weakness.