One of the worst advice I got when I was starting my product career was to "prioritize based on value"

Whilst this sounds nice and of course isn't wrong, per se.

The problem is that 'value' is ambiguous.

But as Jeff Gothelf ​says​:

“Value” is the most ambiguous word in business.

“9 Ways to Improve your OKRs”

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten a lot of questions about OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), including one yesterday whilst writing this post… honestly if this was published I could have just sent them the link.

So let’s avoid another call. In this post I want to equip you with the different hallmarks I look for in effective OKRs so you can self-diagnose and hopefully escape OKR theatre!

Let’s get into them

If you missed last week’s webinar with Product Ops legend, ​Antonia Landi​, don’t worry the recording is up on ​YouTube here​.

We covered a lot of ground, but one thing I didn’t expect was to go all meta and discuss “what is product management?”

I love this model for clarifying roles and responsibilities because it's light weight, simple, easy to use...and it works!

Inspired by the driver-navigator pattern from pair programming, I call it (you guess it!) 'Driver + Navigator'.

1. Who is driving?

2. and, Who is navigating?

Here's why I'm skeptical on AI.

That's not to say I don't think it's going to have a material impact on our world — I think it will — but just because something can be done with AI doesn't mean it's going to provide the same value.

Hear me out... (and I totally recognise not everyone is going to agree with me on this one!)

Here's a stat that might blow your mind;

The number of independent agents in the US has grown from 45,000 in the late 90s to more than 105,000 in early 2020, before the pandemic — that's more than a 230% increase! (reference '​The Jolt Effect​').

Coming up with a product strategy should be messy.

It's not some clean fill in the box activity.

Instead it's often big messy Miro boards, multiple white boarding sessions, synthesising loads of data, and documents plastered with comments.

And a lot of back-and-forth.

It's important to not mistake a neat Product Strategy document at the end as the thing.

I don’t like using the term “empowered” because it’s ambiguous.

Empowered to do what?

• Are you empowered to expand your product internationally

• Empowered to build a whole new business within your current org?

• Build a new brand under a parent company?

Of course, empowerment doesn’t mean “do whatever you like” but therein lies the question:

What exactly are you empowered to do?

We usually think in additive terms.

Building the next feature, the next 'big bet', or expanding into a new market.

It's always adding more.

But what if growth could be found in removing instead?

I believe this is true for most products.

And it's was why I decided to create a NOT doing list rather than a todo list this year (full list at the end).

2024 was a crazy year for product management; it got canceled more times than I can count…

…and I can count to at least 11!

From Airbnb “getting rid” of Product Managers to my LinkedIn feed being filled with posts about how ‘product is dead’ and ‘all hail AI.’

It’s been a wild year!

Between the 150,000 people who read this newsletter and the most common challenges across my clients, here are the top 5 challenges that product people like yourself faced in 2024:

I'm sure you’ve run into this thinking before too, that involving engineers in discovery is a waste and will slow down delivery as they’re spending less time doing. But as counter-intuitive as it may feel, when you involve the whole team into product discovery it should speed up delivery not slow it down.

Being data-driven can be an awful trap.

We believe we’re collecting data that portrays an unbiased view of the world.

Data that will help us make the ideal decision.

After all, that’s what the data says, right?

Bad news. Your data is biased.

One of your primary responsibilities as a leader is to create clarity.

Clarity on:

-context, strategy, vision, goals

-roles, careers, expectations

-culture, boundaries, what’s acceptable vs not, etc…

A lot of problems I see in orgs can boil down to a lack of clarity.

Product Discovery activities by risk. This isn't supposed to be an 'ultimate list' or 'must do' I created it as a guide to help give you an idea of some of the discovery activities that you might do depending on what you need to test.

This post will make you rethink prioritization through the lens of urgency.

Lessons and reflections from John Cutler’s Effective Prioritzation Workshop.

A common mistake is treating the platform the same. Defining your users and customers as the teams that consume your platform.

Instead what you really have is a daisy chain. Where those consuming your platform are trying to achieve something for an end user.

Why you should stop saying “Don’t Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions”

Over the years working in an agency, navigating my own career and today as a Product Coach I’ve probably onboarded to 20+ different companies now.

Over that time, I’ve refined approaching my first 90 days into 3x 30 days sprints:

• Sprint 1 (first 30 days) = Discovery

• Sprint 2 (30–60 days) = Quick wins

• Sprint 3 (60–90 days) = Establishing trust

Below you’ll find a write up on:

• What is Dual Track (continuous discovery and delivery) and how does it work

• Why you should move away from project discovery towards this model

• The mindset that you need to make it successful

• and common practices that I’ve found helpful

In this week's post you’ll find:

• What is product discovery?

• The 3 Core Components of Product Discovery

• What the definition of done is for discovery

• Why product discovery should help you STOP ideas

• And who does product discovery

Over the years coaching teams and product leaders all around the world, I’ve seen a wide range of different teams.

Teams who weren’t teams at all. More like groups of individuals.

Dysfunctional teams caught ‘spinning their wheels.’

And what you might call high-performing teams where they flow and effortlessly work off each other.

These small, cohesive teams run circles around teams twice their size - even whole departments in some cases!