Dr Bart Jaworski

Do you feel anxiety when looking at your Product backlog with those 1014 tickets? What if I told you there is another way? Here are 8 ways to keep your backlog clean and actionable:

1) Differentiate between a backlog item and an idea - It's ok to have a notebook, Figma, mural, whatever, where you collect all ideas and requests. However, the backlog should only contain items you aim to work on FOR REAL within the next 1-3 quarters.

2) Set a hard limit of tickets - In my experience, only the top 20-30 tickets will actually have any chance to ever be closed as completed. There are too many new directions, opportunities, and urgent tasks coming in overriding the priority of tasks further in the backlog. Just close the items that will never happen or at least move them to your ideas space.

3) Don't make it a BUGlog - bugs are tasks like all others. They need value and effort estimation and have to be prioritized against any other product opportunity. If they don't make the cut, they don't make the cut, sorry. No point collecting bugs - they are not Pokemon!

4) Keep the tickets high quality - However, if there is something in your backlog, let it shine! Make sure to include the user story, impact hypothesis, requirements, and links to design and tracking specifications. The tickets should be able to speak for you when you are not around.

5) Try to have 3 months' worth of refined items ready to go - It might be hard (try daily refinements!) to achieve and it's worth it! With items ready for the next 3 months for the team can pick up, you will have so much time to do proper long time planning and assessment. It's worth the initial effort!

6) Introduce visual cues - It's much easier to look at the backlog if you can easily tell apart a new feature task, improvement initiatives, bugs, and research. If you add other color cues to represent item status, you will be able to tell everything at a glance.

7) Add key stakeholders to their tickets of interest - A personal update email may work. Automated status updates work too and keep relevant people in the loop with no time investment on your end!

8) Create a task document associated with a backlog item - This is basically an extended version of the ticket, where you can collect all the pre-development research and post-development results and observations. Collecting this info in one place saves you hours when it comes to writing progress updates and presentations. At the same time, your tickets remain clean and hold only the relevant information.

There you go! Here are my 8 ways to keep the backlog neat and functional. Will those work for your backlog and if not, why? Or perhaps you can contribute more pieces of advice? Sound off in the comments!

#productmanagment #productmanagers #backlog

P.S. Having a clean backlog is one thing. Having great tasks to put there is another challenge every Product Manager faces. To be well equipped to face that challenge, check out my courses at drtbartpm. com :)

Product Management is NOT about adding new features to your product! It's about adding VALUE! 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝟴 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝗱 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁:

1) Direct metrics’ growth
This most basic, business-driven aspect of the “value” concept. It will often drive your product goals, and it’s easy (and mandatory!) to measure. New features will mostly fall under this category!

2) Preventing a probable future drop in metrics
Any product is like a house; if not maintained and fixed, it will eventually collapse. This aspect translated into quality that the client/user often doesn’t get to appreciate until it’s too late. To achieve this kind of value, you will have your development team fixing bugs, making products scalable, and introducing/replacing old technologies in favor of newer ones.

3) Ability to track the impact of the work
Measuring stuff is often not easy and straightforward. How do you for example measure if a call was “fun” on Skype? This aspect of value is not only about investing time into creating tracking dashboards and implementing tracking software but also figuring out how to measure in the first place.

4) Growing stakeholders’ trust
If you do not have your stakeholders’ support and people in your company don’t understand your decision, your work will be misunderstood. Thus, you need to dedicate time to ensure your efforts are transparent and it’s easy to trace your steps and support your decisions.

5) Increasing the speed of development
Encourage your development team to investigate any process bottlenecks and propose solutions. It’s up to you if you accept the investment! It might work out and bear fruit later or the change might be hardly noticeable.

6) Improving morale and joy at work
The best thing you can do for a product is to make sure people who shape it, enjoy what they are doing and each other’s company. Skipping the obvious elements of empathy and being an honest man, a team that likes their work will act as junior Product Managers! They will contribute great ideas, warn you about possible dangers, and will be passionate about their work.

7) Complying with regulations
You might need to work with legal and make the product worse to secure its future.

8) Finding the right perspective
Any creative, brainstorming work, and SWOT exercises: when done at the right time, can unravel great new ideas and perspectives.

Do you agree with these 8? Are there any other ways PM can improve the Product? Sound off in the comments!

P.S. It's my birthday and until the end of the week, on my website: www.drbartpm .com all courses are discounted 70% with the code Drbart3870 on checkout! Additionally, to get as many of you as possible going successful through those Product job interviews, the course “Win your Product Management job interview“ is now available for only $10 with the code InterviewPMbirthday23 on checkout :)

#productmanagment #productexperience #productdevelopment

😵 The role of a Product Manager can be expected to hold far too many responsibilities,
especially in early Start-ups :) When I was working in one, I often joked the only thing I didn't do was accounting*... I recall I did:

- code development for internal CRM,
- planning roadmap and tickets (Product!),
- project management,
- bugs debugging,
- email and server maintenance,
- 3rd line of client support,
- onside client management,
- SPAM filter manual management,
- UI design,
- sales calls and training,
- and probably many others...

That was too much. Too much responsibility, too much stress, too much everything...

Nowadays, I try to keep my head clean and stick to these by-the-book responsibilities:

- shaping Product vision, strategy and goals,
- deciding what to build in the product (what problems to solve) and in which order,
- conducting research that justifies his/her choices,
- setting and measuring the success criteria of the developed items,
- listening to users and clients and reacting to feedback,
- being on a constant look for new market opportunities,
- leading teams without authority,
- carrying for the financial health of the product.

It doesn't mean your PM role has to be 1:1 like this list above. Just make sure you ask about your responsibilities during the job interview and also later, you won't allow your managers to make you do almost everything!

*and that's only because I would then realize how little I was paid :P

#productmanagment #humour #responsibilities

Don't you just envy the Product Managers of the early 2000s? Everything was so new and undiscovered. Is it so hard now because of their mistakes or...

Let me start by saying it's like I blame the Product Managers “of old“. You have to learn to walk before you run. Just because in the early days there was no emphasis on long-term technical excellence or user privacy, it doesn't mean that problems that those answered weren't there.

Truth be told, Product Management and the entire IT industry, used to be a niche, a boutique industry really, where different sins and omissions would be accepted because they would affect a limited number of passionate users. Early user data leaks from Google or Microsoft would basically go unnoticed, as no one cared, and the whole ordeal wasn't even regulated properly.

The reason I have to spend weeks and months before sending anything new to the product live is the fact that our little niche industry has become more than mainstream. People's lives and livelihoods are at stake even for the smallest of products.

Thus, as the industry matured, so did Product Management, making it so much more complicated...

However...

Is it just me, or even though we invested tons of time and resources into automated and manual testing and QA procedures, written privacy laws, and came up with better development practices, not much has really changed? Bugs slip to production on a regular basis, data leaks (are breached), and the development of the simplest of the components takes far too much time.

That's why I often romanticize the times when Product Management was more about creating a wonderful painting rather than building a pyramid of epic proportions.

How about you? Do you also dream of simpler days while still understanding why things are the way they are? What's the most convoluted product development story you would like to share? Sound off in the comments!

#productmanagement #productmanager #development

P.S. To become a Great Product Manager of today, be sure to check out my courses on www .drbartpm .com :)

Does your roadmap change every 2 months and it's impossible to kick off any larger project, not to mention maintain a steady vision and strategy? Is there a way out of this madness? Well...

Probably all books or courses about Product Management teach about the importance of keeping a single vision and strategy and maintaining it for long stretches of time. This allows you to tackle complex issues, focus on users, and create synergy between different releases. The product will be coherent and you will be able to plan your work months in advance.

On the other hand, the same books and courses will tell you to pursue the biggest opportunities within Sprint. You will be encouraged to regularly reprioritize your backlog and invest in items that will bring the most value, quickest, with the smallest risk.

Already sounds like a tad of a contradiction on the “ideal theory“ level, right?

Reality can be even worse...

In my experience very often strategy and goals are there to be on paper for leadership and big meetings. In reality, you have to work on those and:

• Fix bugs
• Enable sales
• Ensure stability
• Support other teams
• Answer market demand
• Keep certificates updated.
• Keep tech backbone stable
• Keep the user rating very high
• Accommodate marketing needs
• Update all SDKs and other components
• Stay up to date with the company's branding
• And probably many different things I simply forgot

This means each and every sprint is a survival challenge, where you decide what is most likely to break first.

Thus, I ask again:

Is there a solution to this madness?

Nothing rock solid, but there are a few things you can try:

• Dedicate some of the roadmaps to “Keeping the Lights On“ tasks, so that investment is visible
• Keep your resolve when challenged for more strategic investment. Have data ready to show the potential cost of neglecting certain priorities.
• Add ALL types of tasks to the backlog, prioritize them in the same framework, and indeed choose the top priority tickets every sprint.
• Make the prioritization process result transparent and easy to understand. This way you will have data to back up your decisions.
• Accept you can not do everything and focus on what's most important. You will upset someone, so choose your battles
• Have no regrets. You always make the best decision given the data you have. You can't consider what you don't know
• Include a hidden prioritization parameter: your career. While users should be most important for Product Managers, secure your position and career progress first and foremost.
  
Do you agree with my observations? How does your company deal with ad-hock development and strategic direction? Sound off in the comments!

#productmanagement #productmanager #prioritization

P.S. Always choose the best updates to implement. Head onto www.drbartpm . com and begin your Product journey with me today :) Use the code “linkedinfollower” on checkout to receive a 30% discount on all of them :)

Are you sick and tired of your Product Manager's work being invisible? How is it that we work so much and bring so little? Here's how to spotlight your effort:

Let's face it: Doing Product Management RIGHT takes time. Researching the market, competitors, and internal development, performing various discovery actions, iterating on the design, and finding a feasible development solution with the team are weeks of work!

Of course, you can rush a half-assed job and hope for the best, but that's not in the spirit of the position! If companies force their PMs into such a foolish crunch to "motivate them to think outside the box", they are basically OK with losing money in favor of showing more things "done" by the end of the year.

Regardless...

If you allow it, it will really look like you only go to meetings, write emails, and perhaps an occasional ticket in Jira. Even worse, that might be your actual working day, week, month, and beyond.

This is no way to manage a product!

Hell no!

You should be working in a loop of constant research, prioritization, release, and conclusions. All that to always build the right thing that is supported by strong evidence.

If we only rush the next feature just to keep senior "idea givers" happy, then you are no product manager, no project manager... Perhaps a Stakeholder pleaser at best.

But if you do things right, you become more of an individual contributor and will perform a lot of work that people can't see.

What should you do to make it visible and appreciated?

• Include your research findings in your Jira ticket and Product documentation
• Show your team the ideas that didn't make the cut (and why)
• Make it easy to trace the steps that led you to your decisions
• Always speak of the context whenever you can
• Organize knowledge-sharing sessions

But most of all...

Focus on getting results that align with the vision, current strategy, and Product goals.

Honestly, nothing else should matter.

The team will trust you if you meet those goals
Stakeholders will put confidence in you

You will be proud of your work.

The product will grow!

Go hit those goals :)

So, does your team appreciate your efforts?

Let me know in the comments.

Also, let me invite you to a free webinar where Aakash Gupta and myself will show you hands-on how to become a truly modern AI PM. If you use the right AI, you can achieve the best product results in record time.

We'll show you how to operate like the best of the best on Tuesday, August 11th at 9 am PT.

▶️https://lnkd.in/d-g9C6Bh

#productmanagement #productmanager #development

POV: You've been teaching product management for years.

The frameworks live in your head.
The examples live in your notes.
The explanations live in Claude chats.

Past:
↳ Build the same framework slide from scratch
↳ Copy notes into a deck tool
↳ Spend an hour formatting
↳ Lose half the thinking in translation

Present:
↳ Open Claude and Connect Gamma
↳ One prompt mid-conversation
↳ Gamma builds the deck inside Claude
↳ Framework. Examples. Visuals. Done.

The prompt I used:

"Based on our conversations about product management and the AI era, build me a Gamma deck on the core frameworks every PM needs right now. Keep it practical."

Clean slides. Real structure.
Never left the chat.

Your best thinking is already in your Claude conversations.

Gamma just makes it teachable.
➜ https://lnkd.in/dKTAmV6B

#productmanagement #productmanager #sponsorship

Do you know what made product management way more difficult than it needs to be: Fear of making a decision! Here is how to deal with indecision:

My line of work appears easy to me: I have my backlog with ideas, business needs, bugs, tech improvements, and user feedback, and I prioritize it based on the value/effort chart, my goals, and the current business strategy.

No frameworks, fancy software, or external companies are required.

But how so? The Product Manager's decision needs to be based on detailed research, reliable data, and a Discovery process.

But does it, really? I know that theory and textbooks will say otherwise, but this "investigation", or rather discovery, type of approach is often overkill.

If you applied this complex and extensive process to every backlog item, not only would the ticket's lifetime increase significantly, but also any initiative would be that much later,  live in the product.

Thus, you must realize that when selecting how much discovery you need to make an educated decision, a few factors need to be considered before invoking all those time-consuming possibilities:

• Can we release some MVP within a sprint or two?
• Are we in a race with competitors?
• Has this been tried successfully in a different product before?
• Is this an update that can't be rolled back?

If you answered "yes" to at least one of those points, you should consider improving your work and polishing the new release based on user feedback and data analytics.

"Released is better than perfect," my dear reader.

Think of this as a poker game: You need to consider the risk and stakes when making a decision. Low risk and stakes will allow you to move swiftly to the river stage of the game. When the stakes are high, and you don't hold a pair of aces, you will have to tread carefully before making your bet.

So, do you think you are doing enough research before deciding how to move forward?

Let me know in the comments.

Aakash Gupta

#productmanagement #productmanager #discovery

A Product Manager can be the main source of problems for an Agile team. Here's what you need to avoid:

Let me start by saying that the productivity of the Agile team is usually as good as its weakest link. If a key player "doesn't get it", your whole flow will be hurt. This will result in frustration, bad morale, missed goals, and anger.

That's no place to work!

Before we begin, on Monday, August 17th, Aakash Gupta and I are launching the 4th Cohort of the LandPMjob. We already helped a few dozen people land a new position, despite the current crazy difficult job market.

Become our next success story; join the cohort today:

www.landpmjob.com

Back to the topic: how can you, the Product Manager (or PO in Agile), become that weakest link?

1) Micromanaging
PMs who dictate how to implement a feature rather than focusing on what needs to be solved will quickly kill team autonomy and motivation. Your devs are problem-solvers, not mindless AIs.

2) Positioning yourself at the center stage
If every meeting, update, and decision revolves around you, something’s wrong. A great PM facilitates collaboration and gives others room to shine, rather than acting as the sole authority. You do realize PM/PO should not attend daily, right?

3) Trying to appear as the technical expert
You don’t need to know how to code to be a great PM. Pretending to understand things you don’t, or second-guessing engineers’ expertise, is a fast track to losing their trust. Let experts be experts.

4) Putting in too many meetings
A bloated calendar steals valuable dev time. If they can’t get deep work done because of endless syncs and check-ins, productivity will nosedive. Make meetings count. I cancel a ton of meetings to give my teams time to code!

5) Expecting too many deliverables too fast
Agile doesn't mean faster. Teams can deliver iteratively, but velocity has limits. The constant pressure to ship faster without thinking of trade-offs leads to burnout and half-baked features. Quality > quantity.

6) Resonating your own pressure and frustration to the team
Stakeholders push PMs, and PMs push devs. Sounds logical, but bad idea. Your job is to shield the team from chaos, not amplify it.

7) Not listening to their feedback
The team knows the real constraints and risks. Ignoring their insights will backfire when things go wrong. Listen, adjust, and trust their expertise. It's OK to challenge your team, but it's not to do it endlessly.

8) Making the Agile process a waterfall in disguise
Planning is good, but rigid roadmaps are not. If your backlog is locked in 6 months ahead and changes feel like a project management crime, you’re not Agile: you’re just calling waterfall by another name. With this, all Agile structure loses ALL sense.

Hopefully, being aware of those potential dangers will prevent you from making those mistakes yourself.

Are you guilty of any of those points?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #agile

Are you afraid of falling behind with AI usage as a Product Manager? Here are 𝟮𝟭𝟴 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 and how to install and use them:

Let's be honest: Most of the AI news is either fear-mongering or pushing hype. Chasing every release is a great way to feel busy and learn nothing.

What actually moves the needle is smaller: a few tools that quietly give you back an hour a week on the work you already repeat.

So I did the boring part for you. I went through 218 Claude skills built for product managers, wrote a plain-English description for each one, and put them all in one place.

A few honest words before you dive in.

This is a catalogue, not a leaderboard. Some are brilliant. Some are niche. And not every skill will fit you.

What's gold for one PM is noise for another, depending on your company and how your team works. Try one on real work and keep what earns its place.

They won't replace you - they will help you step up and push your productivity through the roof.

Five free ones I'd use every week:

• PRD Generator by @Lucky Bajaj: a solid first draft instead of a blank page
• User Interview Analyzer by Ron Yang: turns a pile of notes into themes and quotes
• Status Update Writer by Aakash Gupta: the same update, retuned for execs, engineers, and partners
• Prioritize Features by Paweł Huryn : forces you to defend the tradeoff out loud
• Idea Validator by Aakash Gupta: pokes holes in an idea before a stakeholder does

How to install one, for people who'd rather not touch anything technical. No terminal, no code, nothing on your machine. If you can upload a file, you can do this:

1. In Claude, go to Settings > Capabilities and switch on "Code execution and file creation."
2. Go to Customize > Skills, then toggle on anything you want to try.
3. To add a free skill from the list: download its folder, put it in a ZIP (the folder goes inside the ZIP, not the loose files), then in Customize > Skills hit "+" and upload it.
4. To use it, just describe your task like normal, or type "/" and pick the skill. Claude takes it from there.

One rule for peace of mind: only add skills from people you trust.

The full list of all 218, with descriptions and links, is here:
https://lnkd.in/gxFcuRAD

Try one and tell me which one stuck. I read every reply.

So, what's already in your daily PM stack?

Let me know in the comments

Also, if you wish to become an AI PM properly, Aakash and I are launching our 4th Land PM Job cohort very soon.

It's a very special 12-week program that will help you achieve the big tech PM goal, tailored to making sure you land your product job soon, despite the challenging market. We've already done so much for so many of our students, and you can be next.

Check out the program here: www.landpmjob.com

#ai #productmanagement #productmanager

It can be so frustrating when you bring a seemingly perfect user story to your devs, and they point out tons of gaps. Here's how to prevent it:

We've all been there, right? You put in the hours, you learned from your last mistakes, and then you go to your project refinement and present your work to your development team.

What could possibly go wrong?

Expectation?
Team clapping, being thankful for doing most of the work already, and just sitting down to break the use of the stories and requirements down into tasks.

Reality?
Additional meeting or two on debates about edge cases (obvious, now), gaps, and things that the team thinks you didn't think about.

Fortunately, Thumba.ai, my newest patron, has got you covered;

They've recently released a free tool that allows you to simply share with them a user story and the requirements you've written in order to search for gaps.

This way, you can easily take an extra step before your next refinement and make sure that you are as prepared as possible, perhaps avoiding a gap or two. This makes it way easier with your developers.

Check the tool here:
https://lnkd.in/dq7RTF8e

What was your biggest disagreement with the team and the project that required the most work for you to release?

Share your stories in the comments.

#productmanager #userstory #agilescrum

How is it that, as a product manager, you have to abandon most of your work half-baked? How to escape the MVP trap?

Stop me if this sounds familiar: You and your team spend months on an incredible idea. You launch the MVP. It shows great results. Of course, there is so much more you can do to improve it.

And then it happens...

You suddenly need to abandon your current success and work on another MVP to have a shot at hitting, representing mounting stakeholder pressure.

The cycle repeats.

Result?
• Tech debt and bugs are piling up
• Half-baked features that never reach their potential
• Disjointed products, because “we’ll integrate it later.”
• Promising features were tossed aside when they only needed refinement
• A frustrated team that feels like they’re building sandcastles, not products

Well, if it is this bad, why does this keep happening, you may ask. Well:
• Risky bets get prioritized over safe, compounding wins → hype always outshines steady growth. No idea why dev cycles seem to be run by adrenaline addicts.
• Market conditions and management change faster than dev turnover → strategy gets rewritten before work is finished.
• Everything takes too long → by the time you’re ready to release one thing, priorities have shifted.
• The toxic belief that “𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳”

So, what do you do? How do you fight back to deliver quality, optimal performance, and the best products?

Here are some suggestions:

1) Design MVPs that fit your product’s quality bar
While MVP is a version of your product that can prove your hypothesis with the least effort, perhaps you have put more time and effort after all, as if this were something close to a final release from day 1?

2) Put improvements on the roadmap
When stakeholders see that iterations are planned, they’re less likely to cancel them for the next shiny gem.

3) Leave sprint space to revisit older work
Most teams fail here. By deliberately carving out capacity, you give features room to grow, polish, and integrate. Otherwise, every MVP is destined to rot in production and add to the graveyard of “good but forgotten” ideas.

4) Use transparent, data-driven prioritization
If your follow-up work stacks better against new, risky ideas, it's easier to defend staying on the same dev lane.

5) Educate stakeholders on the cost of distraction
If your managers and stakeholders only see successful MVPs, why wouldn't they push for more? They need to know the cost of such actions.

6) Build your independence and authority
This is a story for another post.

So, have you ever had to leave a new, successful feature in the middle of the planned development cycle?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #mvp

It can be extremely stressful when an authority figure, like a manager or CEO, comes to you with a bad idea. Here are 8 ways to say "No" effectively:

1) Force the CEO/manager into a discussion
Don't just say "yes" or nod. If the CEO/manager wants you to do something, you need to do your due diligence. Having a conversation is the first reasonable step.

2) Ask for the reasoning
You need to understand what user/business problem does CEO/manager want to solve. Perhaps you can offer a better alternative? Or at least understand that the request is not that stupid from a wider perspective.

3) Ask for data
To have the request added as a task to the backlog, you need data to allow prioritization and to estimate the impact hypothesis. If the figure of authority gave you the request, perhaps it comes with some handy data. You wouldn't act on an opinion, now would you?

4) Ask for time
If there is no data and no good reason, you will need time to look into this. Anything stupid on the surface can be a hidden gem (say the original premise of Twitter: Who would want to run a microblog with only 160 chars to work with?) and you need time to evaluate.

5) Perform your research
Is there any data on the request? How did competitors solve the same problem? Did science tackle it? Was it tried in the company before? You know, the usual backlog item stuff :)

6) Prioritize the request in your backlog
Now, that you can assess the impact, certainty, risk, and perhaps the effort needed, time to see where the CEO/Manager mandate items rank in the list of priorities. If it's a round the bottom or middle, time to:

7) Arrange a follow-up meeting
Now you are able to speak with the stakeholder again. This should be set as soon as possible. Perhaps you will need to timebox your research phase to adjust to the other side's calendar.

8) Demonstrate the cost of prioritizing the request
Show the CEO/Manager all your other plans, the problems they solve, and the expected impact. The stakeholder will have a clear visibility of where his/her request ranks in comparison.

Afterward, you shouldn't even need to say "No". The CEO should withdraw her/his request!

Would you be able to say "No" to a high authority figure?

Let me know in the comments.

Would you like to learn how AI can help your job search?

Join us on a free masterclass with Aakash Gupta on April 23rd 2026, @ 6:00 PM CEST

https://lnkd.in/dTmX-CQe

Meme template: shencomix

#productmanagement #productmanager #leadership

You know what the thing is that Product Managers get mostly wrong? They chase details while they should focus on the big picture. How to escape this trap?

Listen, I get it. A product manager is responsible for the end shape of any product and release, so no wonder you may feel compelled to micromanage every detail.

Even worse, your stakeholders might force you to do that, by putting a lot of pressure on you (after all, if you fuck up, it's like they did as well).

But it's simply not the way, not the proper way. At least, unless you prefer to be a product manager in title only, and instead focus on project and engineering management.

At the same time, it's not like I will tell you this and magically you can shift your attention from detail-oriented to high-level. You need to set this up properly.

How?

1) Delegate the responsibility for quality to your team
Your engineers and designers are professionals. Trust them to deliver quality work. Set clear standards, provide context, then step back. Create systems where quality is everyone's job, not just yours. Regular code reviews, design critiques, and testing protocols should run without your constant oversight.

2) Ensure you won't proceed without a stellar strategy and goals that you can monitor with metrics
No initiative moves forward without a crystal-clear "why" and measurable success criteria. Before diving into features, nail down the business case, user problem, and specific metrics you'll track. This becomes your north star when everyone else gets lost in implementation details.

3) Secure the support of your manager
This part is political, and it matters more than you think. You need air cover. If your manager expects you to chase Jira tickets, you’ll never have the space to think strategically. Fix that first.

4) Put extra care into product requirements and background for any initiative
Invest heavily upfront in comprehensive PRDs that capture context, user stories, and success metrics. The more thorough your requirements, the less you'll need to micromanage implementation.

5) Define your future focus outcomes
It's best to translate your future-focused efforts into something tangible. Otherwise, you may end up working a lot with nothing to show for it.

Only with this will you find the proper space that will fall into place naturally and will allow you to do proper product management. After all, you are there to secure a stable and prosperous future for your product, not just the next sprint.

Are you able to focus on the big picture right now?

Let me know in the comments.

Do you want to have a great strategy to land your next product job? Get a new PM job in 2026 with Aakash Gupta and my cohort "Land PM job". We're starting the 2nd cohort next week, after already getting many people hired from the first one. Check it out here:

www.landpmjob.com

#prodcutmanagement #productmanager #strategy

It's so true that Product Management theory and best practices are only used during job interviews. Here are 8 reasons why:

Before the promised 8 reasons, let me note that there is nothing wrong with this discourse. Knowing about it shouldn't prevent you from pursuing further Product education. Though it won't always be 100% applicable, I assure you it will help you get out of more than 1 jam and will allow you to really impress your peers!

Having said that, here's why theory is so different than reality:

1) Lack of focus
Theory always describes building a product/increment as if you are working on a single piece of it. That would make a relaxing and slow job! Instead, you are actually working on 5, 10, 15, maybe more different development initiatives at the same time. That is bound to force you into some shortcuts!

2) Lack of resources
Whether that is time, number of developers, designers, or your very own brain power, it is not possible to attend to everything that all the stakeholders need. You may know how to deal with that in theory, but that never takes into account the stress, emotions, and pressure put on you.

3) Dealing with real people
No theory will prepare you for dealing with your seniors and peers. Sometimes, you will do something out of the box; sometimes, you will have to "bend the knee" to successfully perform:

4) Maneuvering the politics
No Product Theory prepares how to deal with the stupidest things you will have to do to fit the politics and please the shareholders. I've been on the receiving end of this stick more often than I would have ever expected.

5) Everything is stretched out in time
It's easy to follow specific steps when it's a tight diagram on paper. When you need to take real meetings with people who have their calendars blocked for weeks on end, everything starts getting much more difficult, and you need to get creative to get things done!

6) There will always be too many high priorities
Just like that, I never met a stakeholder who would be happy with PM's scope of priorities. Sometimes it's not about preventing the fires but choosing what will burn :(

7) Unexpected things will happen (a lot)
How can you have a tidy, by-the-book process if things get broken and new emergencies pop up daily? I know I get lost when all hell breaks loose!

8) You are just a person
It's one thing to know what to do. It's another to have the mental strength and resilience to see it through...

Did you ever fail a product management interview by being too honest and pragmatic?

Let me know in the comments.

Want to improve your interviewing skills further?

The 4th edition of our LandPMJob cohort, run by me and Aakash Gupta, starts very soon. We've already helped dozens of people find a new job in this crazy market, and we hope you'll be next.

Sign up today: http://www.landpmjob.com/

#productmanagement #productmanager #jobsearch

I remember the frustration of waiting for the smallest detail to be implemented for weeks on end. Nowadays, PMs can do it themselves in minutes. Here's how:

Being a product manager used to mean that you had lots of time to think because you waited all the time. Wait for the code to be completed, shipped, rolled out, and tested. This was acceptable for bigger releases.

However, this also meant that if you wanted to fix a small visual issue or improve some copy, the same time constraints would apply. You felt like a snail in a world that wanted you to be a cheetah.

Of course, nothing prevented you from actually learning to code and joining your development team in the efforts to bring changes to life. This is actually how I learned SQL and PHP back in the day. But this only applies to small startups, where a pre-junior developer can emerge and just do things on their own.

However, nowadays, with a product called Rezonant , it's absolutely viable for a PM to be the guardian of small details and overall product polish.

Rezonant can automatically create tickets from your feature ideas that you can push to Jira, Linear, or your coding agent. The app does that while taking into account the full context of your product, both from the product charter and the codebase aspect.

But that's not where the magic stops. They also offer a Chrome plugin, which you can show your product to and simply talk about the changes that you want to see in the product. No manual ticket writing, no worrying about Jira templates, no jumping between ten different tools. Everything happens automatically for you, so you can focus on pointing out the areas where improvements are needed.

And it gets better. Now they have introduced an MCP server, which you can use to directly feed your Claude Code (or other coding agent) tickets (that you have created while examining the product), so that Claude can take it from there and code the change for you.

To put it simply, it's like having your product assistant that listens to what updates you would expect to see in the product and somehow makes them happen almost instantly, at least on your development environment.

Want to try Rezonant?

Check them out today:
https://lnkd.in/drt2_yYD

What was the longest you have spent on a relatively small improvement?

Let me know in the comments.

#𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 #𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 #sponsorship

P.S. I once oversaw a visual update to Skype's call controls that took over three months

You feel so disappointed when you fail your AI PM interview, despite stellar preparation for 2 rounds. In reality, you should prepare for the following 6:

I mapped the whole thing out, round by round. Here is what each one is actually testing:

1) Product sense with AI.
Can you shape a product around what a model is good and bad at? Anchor on one real user job and name where it breaks.

2) Technical depth.
They are not after transformer trivia. They want evals, RAG, and failure modes. A reliability plan wins.

3) Execution and metrics.
"DAU of a Claude feature dropped 15% last week. Diagnose it." Segment, isolate, hypothesis tree. No guessing.

4) Strategy and business.
"A model with 10x the capability at 10x the cost. What do you do?" Find the buyer who values 10x.

5) Behavioral, AI-flavored. Bring one concrete thing you actually shipped. Specifics beat frameworks every time.

6) Take-home and practical.
The round nobody preps. Usually: whiteboard an eval framework. A rubric beats vibes.

The through-line across all six is evals. Learn to design one, and you clear more than half the loop.

These roles pay for it: up to $860K at the top of the band, with a 10 to 28% premium over the same level in non-AI PM roles. And 1 in 6 open PM roles is now an AI PM role.

We're teaching the full breakdown live with Aakash Gupta, 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘, 𝗧𝗢𝗗𝗔𝗬, July 23 at 9:00 AM PDT: https://lnkd.in/gPU-ui7W

Can't make it? Prep each round here:

* Product sense: https://lnkd.in/gzGaTwGK
* Execution: https://lnkd.in/gfffr_zC
* Technical: https://lnkd.in/guh_Zc8X
* Behavioral: https://lnkd.in/edKrAAFA
* Strategy: https://lnkd.in/eqzpahmW
* Take-home: https://lnkd.in/gMUJYAFq

Prep all six. That's the only way to win.

Which steps do you need to work on the most?

Let me know in the comments. There's also a link to the 4k version of the image.

#productmanagement #aipm #jobinterviews

If you’ve ever tried to evaluate translation quality in your product, you know the pain.
However, there is a solution:

Actually, it's best to use MQM (Multidimensional Quality Metrics), the gold standard for evaluating translation quality, adopted by major localization teams. In practice it often means spreadsheets, manual setups, or heavyweight enterprise tools that slow everything down.

Not anymore!

Alconost, my ongoing partner and patronm, just released a free MQM Annotation Tool that makes translation quality evaluation actually usable in real workflows.
What it does well:

• Allows you to evaluate human or machine translations using the full MQM error taxonomy
• Supports custom error weights and pass/fail thresholds aligned with business quality goals
• Visualizes error distribution and segment-level scores
• Exports results as CSV, TSV, JSON, or PDF for reporting and vendor discussions
  
Works instantly in the browser, no setup, no install needed.

This is especially useful for:
• Multilingual products
• Localization managers benchmarking
• MT quality LSPs documenting quality in a structured way
• ML and NLP teams are building annotated datasets
• Product teams that need objective, explainable quality signals
  
If MQM ever felt 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦, this tool is worth a look.

👉 Check it out and support the launch on Product Hunt:

https://lnkd.in/dN4eA8zF

What's the best translation failure you have ever seen that this tool could have prevented?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #localization

It's depressing that so many areas of your product can blow up cause you don't have the manpower to watch over them. Here's a solution:

Funnels break, conversions dip, dashboards quietly stop working, and real user anger is lost somewhere in the tons of emotionless data.

Not because your team is bad.
Not because you don’t care.

Modern products simply have too many areas and aspects to monitor manually.

Even if you have automated reporting, there are so many warnings and alerts that hardly anyone can tell the noise from an actual disaster, pending any more.

This is where Amplitude, partner of today's post, comes in with the work they are doing with AI Agents.

What are they?

They are AI-powered teammates that continuously analyze behavior data, surface meaningful changes, explain why they happened, and help you act. They do that either via Amplitude UI directly or using... Slack!

So rather than being "If only I..." after something goes wrong, you have AI scanning your data for any signs of mischief or important insights.

To achieve this, Amplitude introduced 2 layers of such teammates:

Global Agent (formerly Ask Amplitude)
Here, you can ask complex questions in natural language, explore funnels/cohorts/replays, and take action directly from answers (create cohorts, start experiments, launch guides). It understands your taxonomy, journeys, and business context. Just like an actual human Data Analyst,

There are also Specialized Agents with more narrow tasks:

• Dashboard Agent: It auto-generates insights from any dashboard, deep dives into interesting trends and anomalies, and runs proactive monitoring on a schedule so issues surface before they become problems.

• Session Replay Agent: This one reviews hundreds of sessions on a scheduled basis to identify friction and patterns costing conversions. Recommends specific fixes with quantified impact.

• Website Conversion Agent: This agent proposes experiments, generates variants, and creates experiment configurations. With your permission, it will execute launches and share results along with rollout decisions.

• Feedback Agent: It generates scheduled summaries of top themes from unstructured feedback (e.g., surveys, tickets) and surfaces actionable insights teams would otherwise miss.

In other words, you are no longer reactive or looking for issues like needles in a haystack. Problems are found and come to you, explained.

Therefore:
Less dashboard babysitting.
Faster detection.
Faster decisions.
Faster experiments.

Your product doesn’t need more people staring at charts.

One of the best AI implementations I've seen since the AI era began.

Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/dHmSjt6V

Do you feel you'd need such AI teammates in your line of duty?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #dataanalysis

Following user feedback is a Product Management virtue. Is there an actual way to implement it, between all the noise, bugs, and stakeholder requests? Well…

Most teams claim they are customer-driven. Yet the moment you open Zendesk, App Store reviews, survey results, and Slack threads, you instantly remember why everyone quietly avoids this work.

Feedback is everywhere, contradictory, emotional, duplicated, and nearly impossible to turn into decisions. 
It is chaos disguised as “insights.”

This is why the new Amplitude AI Feedback release caught my attention and made it all the easier to decide to partner with them on this update.

It successfully connects what users say with what they actually do, in one workflow.

No extra tools. 
No extra tabs.

You see their words, frustrations, and praise. You see their behavior. And AI transforms it into ranked themes, rising trends, top requests, and complaints.

Noise turns into clarity. Opinions turn into patterns. Patterns turn into action.

And because it is native inside Amplitude, it kills the biggest problem in feedback work: Fragmentation.

Everything flows into analytics, session replay, and cohorts, creating a full loop from insight to fix. You can trace why an issue matters, how many users care, how it impacts behavior, and which actions you should take.

Finally, a single source of truth for PMs, UX, CX, and marketing.

I’m also genuinely impressed with the supported sources of feedback: App Store, Google Play, Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Salesforce Service, Gong, Trustpilot, G2, Reddit, Discord, and X. Slack arrives in Q1, and there will be more!

If you ever felt overwhelmed by feedback, this is one of the first attempts I have seen that genuinely solves the operational pain, not just the reporting part.

It launches… Today!

Take a look: https://lnkd.in/dAJKeTez

What was the most successful update you know that came from the product’s users?
Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #userfeedback

Do you feel frustration as you are building a product to get the management off your back, rather than for the users? Here are 6 ways to become user-centric again:

1) Prioritize in a transparent way

This is a great place to start. If your backlog is prioritized based on data and potential opportunity, risk, and cost, it will be easier to put forth user-centric initiatives ahead of those that came from upstairs. At the very least, you will have a good basis for an educated discussion.

2) Utilize users' perspective using user stories and personas

If your team understands the users and their problems, it will be easier to craft something great that will later appeal to the same users. Just keep up the empathy of creating something by people for other people, and don't let some metric magically go up!

3) Understand user problems

If everyone in the company can see the themes that come from user feedback, it will be way harder to ignore it in favor of some corporate nonsense. Let those voices be heard by everyone! What if there are 100,000s of voices?

4) Have the NPS and user ratings at the forefront

The same goes for a single metric representing the general product sentiment. If the number is low or, worse, is going down and everyone can see that, the responsible Product Manager has to react.

5) Focus on your product goals

Now, upstairs mandates might not be the only distraction you face when trying to improve your product. To survive them all, focus on one thing: your product goals. This will allow you to demonstrate that you are doing what you are asked for, and you can use user feedback and points 1-4 to pursue those goals. Thus, it's like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. However, you can also simply:

6) Have the confidence to say "No."

Not all company/legal/management requests can be ignored. Sometimes changing the law or a wider company initiative will require you to comply, and that is OK! However, there will also be times when someone will try to force your compliance. This is where you need to be confident and exercise your Product Manager's independence, especially when there is no data to support a specific request.

There you go! My 6 ways you can become a user-centric Product Manager.

Do you put your users first in your product?

Let me know in the comments.

Would you like to become a better product manager every day? Sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ddD_FU5q

Looking to land your next product management job? Aakash Gupta and I can help:

http://www.landpmjob.com/

#productmanagement #productmanager #usercentricity

Everyone talks about doing user research, but hardly anyone actually does it. What if I told you you could have your research for every project in minutes?

Let’s be honest: Everyone talks about talking to users, as there simply isn’t enough time and manpower (and budget) to run too often.

Is there any other way?

There is! Today's post's partner: Articos !

Articos is the AI-first user testing and research platform that delivers human-like insights in a few minutes, powered by virtual users.

I will admit, initially, I was skeptical about AI tools that promise to “simulate users” or “run research for you.” The idea of AI interviewing itself didn't sound like one that would bring useful results.

Still, since it is free while in Beta, why not give it a shot?

I am about to run a workshop, timelines are brutal,  and so I gave Articos a try to see how it matches against insights, research, and user interviews I already collected.

The result surprised me positively and provided genuinely useful insights. I knew they were correct as they appeared in different human-to-human research I knew about similar topics, but I failed to connect those dots.

Articos forced me to challenge my own assumptions. I believe my workshop will be better because of the insights provided.

Is this a replacement for real interviews?

No.

Nothing truly replaces talking to humans who live the problem.

But here is where it shines:
• You have an extremely limited time
• You cannot find users to talk to
• You have no research budget
• You need fast directional clarity before doing the real thing
  
In those situations, something that delivers Pareto-quality at speed, for free, is simply a smart move.

So while I will never advocate skipping real conversations with users, I am absolutely adding Articos to my early discovery toolbox. If we cannot always do perfect research, we should at least avoid flying blind.

Want to try it yourself?

Here is the link: https://lnkd.in/gSbQYnYM

Afterward, be sure to come back and let me know in the comments section if you found its findings useful.

I know I did for my project.

#productmanagement #userresearch #productdiscovery

Controversial opinion: Product Managers don't need a roadmap. They needs goals to achieve with a deadline. How to find a realistic middle ground?

Here are 7 actions to consider:

1) If possible, commit to working on goals, not features
This is the ideal situation: Your roadmap is showing how you will timebox different challenges and goals over the coming months. However, let's be honest: Hardly any management will accept such a roadmap. In that case, you will need to supplement this with a set of proposed deliverables that you MAY work on that should address your challenges.

2) Show how your propositions fit into the wider narrative
If you can highlight how your proposed changes address your goals, but also fit into product/company vision, and strategy, and answer market/user needs, you will be a Product Management GOAT (Gen Z readers, how I used that correctly ;)? ). Trust me, this is a roadmap masterclass in this single paragraph.

3) Don't go too granular
You want to impress and inspire your stakeholders. The roadmap meeting will be a long one, and if you dive too deep, you will confuse your audience and lose the narrative. Do it Hollywood style: show, not tell! In any case, you should focus on the details over the course of the year, not when you are launching.

4) Include visualizations
If you have any wireframes or early designs, show them! They might change 1000 times later, but showing early concepts will show that you are nicely progress with your plans. This will build confidence that the presented outcomes will land when you say they will land.

5) Make it easy to access and check the progress
This will save you time on updates - either stakeholders will be able to check your progress on their own, or it will be easier for you to create a "check-in" presentation.

6) Involve the team
Before showing the roadmap to stakeholders, show it to your team for input. Make them a part of the roadmap, not receivers. They should feel proud to follow it and feel co-responsible, not be surprised by your propositions.

7) Stress that it's always only a draft, not a commitment
That's right! If you make this a commitment, it will make it harder for you to change direction later if, say, another ChatGPT pops up out of nowhere. You, as the Product Manager, should always pursue the best value for your product, and no roadmap should stop you from doing that!

How do you craft your roadmap?

Let me know in the comments.

Do you want to have a great strategy to land your next product job? Get a new PM job in 2026 with Aakash Gupta and my cohort "Land PM job". We're starting the 2nd cohort next week, after already getting many people hired from the first one. Check it out here:

www.landpmjob.com

It's only this weekend to sign up!

#productmanagement #productmanager #roadmap

P.S. Thank you 🥞 Carl Vellotti for another inspiring visual :)

Are you confused about how to improve your productivity as a PM with AI? Here are the 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗜 𝘂𝘀𝗲, and the 3 that I('d) use daily:

AI is everywhere now. Your feed, your news, your software, probably your fridge. But not all of it is built the same, and a lot of AI for PMs is smoke and mirrors, put together for marketing more than for solving a real product problem.

So I went on a mission. I identified tools that actually improved my own work output over the last few weeks.

Before anything gets adopted, it has to clear all five criteria:
• Does it solve a real PM problem,
• Does it produce trustworthy output every time,
• Can a PM learn it in a day,
• Does it fit the workflow you already have,
• Was it built for PMs, or is it a generic tool

The full stack can be found here:
https://lnkd.in/d43xsP5N

But here are the three I'd consider best.

1) Wispr Flow (dictation)

This is the rarest kind of tool because it makes every other tool on the list faster. System-wide voice-to-text that works in any app your cursor lands in. It strips filler words, fixes punctuation, and learns your vocabulary so it stops mangling your product names.

It made my text input twice as fast. Try it for a week, and your keyboard will start to catch dust.

Link: https://lnkd.in/dZ4VeSvc?

2) Thumba.ai (tickets and user stories)
Thumba generates complete user stories, acceptance criteria, and test scenarios from plain English or even a wireframe image, then pushes straight into Jira and Azure DevOps. Best for teams shipping a high volume of tickets who want consistent, well-structured stories without the manual overhead. Did I mention it builds reliable testing plans as well?

Link: www.thumba.ai

3) Granola (meeting notes and action items)
How did I ever sit in a meeting without an AI notepad? Granola uses your actual PC audio, transcribes in real time, and hands you a structured summary with action items, decisions, and key moments, searchable across every meeting you've ever had.

If I had to keep only one AI tool, it would be a genuinely hard call between this and Wispr Flow. That's the highest compliment I can give a tool.

One honest note, same as always: some of these have sponsored my posts in the past, but none of them asked to be on this list, and every spot is earned. And what's gold for me might be noise for you, depending on your company and how your team works. Try one on real work and keep what earns its place.

What's already in your daily PM stack?

And which tool should I look at next?

Let me know in the comments.

#ai #productmanagement #productmanager

You may like it or not, but politics is a part of the Product Management world. How can data-driven PMs drive their vision despite that? Easily:

Let me tell you, initially in my career, I was almost allergic to politics. All I wanted to do was do my job to the best of my abilities and not care for other people's ambitions and egos. It took a little time until I fully understood that in most companies, there is simply no escaping this. If you want to be kept on the payroll and improve your product, you will have to be politically engaged on some level.

So, how can we ensure our data-driven vision and discovery efforts are not trumped by someone else's personal goals?

1) Build Strong Relationships
Start with what any PM should do, politics or otherwise. Be a charming, transparent, reliable, inspiring, and empathic leader and colleague. When people know and trust you, they're more likely to support your ideas and defend you from others' egoism.

2) Communicate Clearly
Present your data and insights in a way that resonates with different audiences. Also, aim to say the right stuff, supported by data, to the right crowd at the right time via the right medium. In that case, lots of "rights" make an even greater right! Sidenote: Less is more in terms of clear comms :) Also, always focus on demonstrating tangible value for the clients. That can help overcome political obstacles.

3) Align with Business Goals
You may be sick and tired of politics, but at the same time have some pet projects you'd like to push despite weak data backing or poor alignment with current goals. Police yourself in this regard, and you will have fewer angles of potential political attack open for your "opposition".

4) Know when to let go
Sometimes, the best investment would be to simply do what you are asked. As long as it is sporadic and can win you allies long-term, it's a strategic move. Just keep the paper trail in case the request you took upon yourself backfires.

5) Leverage Allies
Once you build a set of allies and authority, use it to have a stronger voice in the room. In other words: Use politics to build the best product possible. Career growth and recognition will follow organically, and you don't need to change your career into a Product.

6) Don't let it get to you
You may execute the previous 5 points flawlessly and still feel like everything is playing to office politics. Just stay strong, don't let it get to you, and be a beacon of reason and sound decisions. Hopefully, you will lead by example!

So, do you have to struggle with politics at work?

Let me know in the comments.

Would you like to become a better product manager every day? Sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ddD_FU5q

Looking to land your next product management job? Aakash Gupta and I can help:

http://www.landpmjob.com/

#productmanagement #productmanager #officepolitics

Should you build a product to sell or to use? Wait, why choose? Here's how to do both:

Of course, choosing both would be ideal, but let's be realistic here.

You will never have the capacity to build everything users want and need while keeping things stable and technically excellent.

Go to either extreme and you'll fail spectacularly.

Build only to sell?
Your product will fall behind market demand. You'll pile on flashy features to close deals, but ignore the foundation. Users will eventually hit walls, performance will degrade, and churn will spike. Your sales team will struggle to defend a product that barely works.

Build only to use?
Your product will collapse under the weight of too many poorly maintained features. You'll have happy users but no revenue strategy. Technical debt will accumulate, features will conflict, and you'll become a bloated mess that nobody wants to buy.

The reality? You need balance. Here's how to achieve it:

Prioritize on one scale.
Put new features and technical improvements on the same priority list. Force the hard conversations. Every sprint, ask: "What moves the needle more? This new feature or fixing this technical debt?"

Alternative approach: Bucket prioritization.
Consider allocating fixed percentages, maybe 60% new features, 30% technical improvements, and 10% bug fixes. Adjust based on your product's maturity.

Alternate innovation and maintenance cycles.
Spend 2-3 months building new capabilities, then 1 month stabilizing and optimizing. This prevents both feature stagnation and technical collapse.

Highlight the financial cost of poor quality.
Calculate what bugs, slow performance, and technical debt actually cost in lost deals and support overhead. Make technical excellence a business case, not just an engineering preference.

Brutal truth: It's harder to sell than to keep a user.
Your sales team needs compelling stories and smooth demos. Give them ammunition. A product that works reliably is your best sales asset.

Invest in product-led growth.
When new features and quality improvements directly drive user acquisition and expansion, you've aligned your incentives. Quality becomes a growth engine, not just a cost center.

The best products sell themselves because they work beautifully and solve real problems. That's not an accident.

It's the result of intentional balance.

Do you prioritize sales or maintenance in your product?

Let me know in the comments.

Don't miss any of my posts: visit my profile page: Dr Bart Jaworski, click the "Follow" button, and make sure to never miss a post by also hitting the bell icon on the right afterwards :)

#productmanagement #productmanager #prioritization

Do you want to master AI as a professional? Quick test: What is a RAG in AI? Don't know? Here's a list of 15+ 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 courses for this skill for PMs:

 1. AI For Beginners - https://lnkd.in/dGUZgfjt
 2. Master the Basics - https://lnkd.in/dSyfqKme
 3. AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations - https://lnkd.in/dhPN7ExV
 4. Skills Repository (GitHub) - https://lnkd.in/dTgeAGSE
 5. Language Modeling From Scratch - https://lnkd.in/d3DS_97C
 6. Transformers & Large Language Models - https://lnkd.in/daq9sBBf
 7. Stanford AI Cheatsheet - https://lnkd.in/daj_BjDW
 8. Introduction to Generative AI - https://lnkd.in/dCySYcfp
 9. Foundations of Prompt Engineering - https://lnkd.in/dfPycBkX
10. Prompt Engineering - https://lnkd.in/df83vsyA
11. Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT - https://lnkd.in/dT-6qu7K 34. OpenAI: ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers - https://lnkd.in/dN9ip8uM
12. Beyond Chatbots: System Prompts & RAG - https://lnkd.in/djWPNMDv
13. Generative AI in Teaching and Learning - https://lnkd.in/d-wvsxD2
14. Foundations of Generative AI - https://lnkd.in/d2cDA-c3
15. AI & Prompt Engineering - https://lnkd.in/dy2Q3eK6
16. Generative AI Courses (Collection) - https://lnkd.in/d9DkmXih
17. AI & Career Empowerment - https://lnkd.in/d7sRRBHX
18. AI for Business Professionals - https://lnkd.in/diM5dS2S

How will this help with your careers?

Let me know in the comments.

P.S. The answer to the original question is: RAG is a technique where, instead of relying solely on the AI's trained knowledge, you provide it with external documents or data sources at query time, and it builds its response grounded in that retrieved context.

P.S.2 Fun fact: Back in Microsoft days, we had an intern creating AI that would detect trends in 100s of thousands of pieces of feedback provided by users on Skype. This little project helped us decide on what to fix next, and similar AIs are now actual big companies that make a real difference in companies' roadmaps.

#ai #llm #productmanagement

Joining a new org as a Product Manager always induces a lot of fear and self-doubt. Here's how to overcome it and succeed:

Well, for one thing, there is nothing to be afraid of! It's normal to be a little scared initially and feel overwhelmed with all the new information and people being dumped on you.

Start by realizing that you already earned a credit of trust during the recruitment process. You have beaten hundreds, if not thousands, of people to the role. It's not only your CV, but your people skills, communication, and being able to come up with great answers under pressure that got you there.

The company paid SO MUCH to get you, and the investment is not over. No one expects you to be at your best for the next 3 (even 6, sometimes 12) months.

But how to get to the point where you turn from creepy Zuck to cool guy Zuck? Here are some of the actions you need to take, other than chill for a while:

1) Connect with your team on a personal level.
Take time to learn about your team members beyond their roles. Find out what excites them, what challenges they face, and how they like to work. A little empathy goes a long way in building trust.

2) Set up regular 1-1 with your manager and agree on the onboarding plan and product goals.
Use these sessions to align on expectations and make sure you understand what success looks like. A clear onboarding plan helps you focus and avoid drowning in a sea of tasks.

3) Soak in the mission, strategy, metrics, OKRs, history, and backlog of your product.
Absorb the context like a sponge. It’s impossible to make meaningful contributions until you deeply understand the "why" behind your product and its current state.

4) Find quick wins that show your value without overcommitting.
Look for small opportunities to solve problems or improve processes. These don’t have to be groundbreaking but should demonstrate your ability to make an impact.

5) Build relationships with cross-functional stakeholders early.
Product management doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Establish trust with other teams: design, engineering, marketing, and others. With that, you'll be seen as a partner who enables success, not a bottleneck.

6) Embrace feedback and ask lots of questions.
You’re new, so curiosity is your superpower. Don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know, and actively seek feedback to learn and grow faster.

I hope this is helpful and will help you to kick off your next product position stress-free :)

Were you ever really scared of starting a new position?

Let me know in the comments!

#productmanagement #careergrowth #onboarding

Do you also feel your roadmap planning is a counterproductive waste of time? The following 10 pieces of advice will make that plan count:

1) Start too early
The earlier you start, the more time you have to align with stakeholders and refine priorities. October might feel early, but having a draft ready before the year ends allows for feedback and stressless adjustments.

2) Clarify goals and strategy
A roadmap without a clear purpose is just a wish list. Tie it to business goals, customer needs, and your overarching strategy. This gives your roadmap direction and credibility.

3) Allow everyone to chip in
Your roadmap will be stronger if it includes diverse perspectives. Devs will ask for essential technical investments, sales understand customer pain points, and support hears complaints daily. Use their input to ensure your roadmap addresses real needs.

4) Double-check with legal
Don't overlook this! Legal compliance can make or break your plans, especially in industries like fintech, healthcare, or data-heavy products. A quick legal review now can save you from costly setbacks later.

5) Organize a brainstorming workshop
Bring stakeholders together for a focused brainstorming session. Use sticky notes, whiteboards, or virtual tools to encourage creativity. Workshops help uncover ideas you might not have considered and build alignment early.

6) Put an effort estimate on the most promising items
Prioritization isn't just about impact; effort matters too. Collaborate with your devs to estimate the time and resources needed for each initiative. This helps balance quick wins with high-impact projects and helps choose the actual roadmap items during prioritization.

7) Ask your designer to put some quick visuals for the selected initiatives
A picture is worth a thousand words. Having simple visuals for key roadmap items can help stakeholders grasp the vision faster and ensure everyone is aligned on what success looks like.

8) Organize work by quarters, not months, and especially not sprints
Quarterly planning gives enough flexibility to adapt while still maintaining structure. Monthly plans can feel too rigid, and sprint-level roadmaps are operational, not strategic. Keep your roadmap focused on the big picture.

9) Leave room to breathe
Don't overload the roadmap. Unexpected challenges will arise, and new opportunities will pop up. Leaving 20-30% of capacity unplanned ensures you can adapt without derailing the entire roadmap.

10) Be careful with your comms
Communicate clearly that the roadmap is a direction, not a commitment. You’re agile, not waterfall. Keep flexibility baked into your messaging to avoid frustration later.

So, does your roadmap planning feel like it produces something meaningful?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #roadmap

I'm so f*ing proud to help people land product positions in this crazy market. Here's how we do it:

It's been close to a year since Aakash Gupta invited me to co-run the www.landpmjob.com program and actively help people find new positions.

I admit, it didn't take too long for me to hop on board, especially since I was close to being a full-time creator/mentor, and that fit my new career plan perfectly. At that time, I was still helping people land jobs, but it was nothing like it used to be a few years ago, when I could proudly announce that I helped two to five people per week.

Today, there are far fewer positions and many more experienced product managers on the market.

Not to mention that the position has changed significantly, and we all know that AI is the name of the game.

So not only have the expectations of what the ideal candidate should look like changed, but the whole process feels broken. After all, how can you really stand out if hundreds of other people apply at the same time?

Well, you can.

Very much so.

However, this basically means you have to learn how to land your product job all over again.

It's hard to believe that five years ago, a stellar resume, proving that you can execute the product process masterfully and that you have good communication skills, would have easily handed you a product job within two to three months.

Now? You have to do, ideally, all of these things:

• Have a perfectly optimized LinkedIn profile
• Have a network of people willing to recommend you
• Apply with a perfectly customized resume almost as soon as the new position opens
• Post at least once a week on topics that are relevant to people who may want to hire you
• Have an excellent product portfolio online (That one felt useless to me just a few years ago).
• Be ready to proactively provide working feature prototypes for the product you apply for
• Hold cutting-edge AI knowledge that you can easily translate into your product work
• Demonstrate how you use AI at work and privately

Feels overwhelming, right?

That's why we have our Land PM Job cohort.

We spend 12 weeks showing you how to master all those techniques and more. We are confident that this works to the point that if you follow the program (attend the sessions, do the weekly assignments, take all your 1:1s, etc), you are guaranteed to land at least two job interviews, or we'll give you your money back.

While I only display the two latest success stories in the image attached to this post, we've already helped dozens of people.

The fourth cohort starts on Monday, the 17th.

Interested in joining us? Head on to www.landpmjob.com and either sign up immediately or book a 15-minute consultation call to make sure that this program is the right fit for you.

Will I see you in class on Monday?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanager #productmanagement #jobsearch

It's so frustrating to hear you need to build a product users need, without really having the tools to do it. How do we get to the actual needs, then?

Discovery can be very tricky. Quantitative methods may not give you feedback from a representative crowd, not to mention qualitative ones. The process is usually long and expensive, and I won't blame you if you feel you'd be better off just testing stuff.

Still, you are in the business of delivering the optimal value at the lowest cost and risk, while keeping the financial health of your product. Knowing what your users need and pursuing this is your best bet to bring real value to your users.

So what are the effective ways of giving users what they want and need? Let's start with:

1) Iterating on the existing features
Stop if you heard that before. You have a great idea, it's a successful release, but rather than explore it more and get the most out of it, you are forced into something new, shiny, and risky. Fight for the time to get the most value out of the work that has already proven successful!

2) Looking at product funnels
Those funnels will uncover areas where you lose the most users and which you should focus on to deliver more value, especially if you notice some anomalies. Perhaps a simple email to remind the user to resume his/her journey can do wonders for your metrics.

3) Discovering the "Eureka moment"
If you don't know what that is, in short, this is a set of activities that, once done by a user, greatly improve the probability of hooking the users. Facebook used to have 9+ contacts. Once discovered, ensure it's easier to get to the Eureka moment, and the happy path is stellar.

4) Finding meaningful insights in user feedback
Feedback from users can come from multiple sources and be generally confusing. However, there are many tools that make it easy to find the most relevant feedback pieces and trends worth looking into. With or without a tool, this is an easy and reliable discovery action in which you can invest your time!

5) Copying from competitors
If someone has already gone through the discovery for you and proven something works, why not benefit from that? Or even better - do the same but way better!

6) Trying successful mechanisms from other products
Similar to the previous item, I suggest not looking for a feature that works for the competitors, but for any mechanism that achieves the same goals as you seek to achieve. Say you want to improve user engagement - a tried and tested method for that is gamification, which works for multiple products and industries. Perhaps that is something worth trying?

Do you focus on your users?

Looking forward to your comments.

Land your new Product job with Aakash Gupta and me! The 4th edition of our LandPMJob cohort starts very soon. We've already helped dozens of people find a new job in this crazy market, and we hope you'll be next.

Sign up today: www.landpmjob.com

#productmanagement #productmanager #discovery

Are you afraid of falling behind with AI as a Product Manager? Here are 𝟱𝟱 𝗔𝗜 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀, with the two most useful ones explained in-depth:

Last week, I handed you a catalogue of Claude's skills. A lot of you wrote back with the same thing: the skills are great, but most of my AI work still happens in a plain chat box, and I never know what to type.

Fair. Skills are the saved, reusable version. Prompts are what you reach for at 9 am when you just need the blank page to go away.

So I did the boring part again. I gathered 55 PM prompts and 7 full prompt libraries and created a resource convenient for you.

Before we start, do know that a prompt isn't some magic spell. It's a thinking structure. A smarter model with a lazy prompt still gives you a lazy answer. The model got better at following instructions. It did not get better at reading your mind.

Here are the most useful ones promised:

𝟭) 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗥𝗗

The blank-page killer. You've got scattered thoughts from three conversations and a vague feeling of what needs building. This turns that into something you can hand to engineering.

The reason it works is the first instruction: it asks before it writes. It fires up to 10 clarifying questions, and those questions aren't a gimmick. They surface the decisions you were quietly avoiding, like whether mobile is in or out for v1, before they become a fight in the review. You walk away with a PRD and a sharper sense of your own feature.

𝟮) 𝗥𝗲𝗱-𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗣𝗥𝗗 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀

My favourite. You wrote the PRD, you're too close to it, and there's a hole you can't see. This prompt plays the skeptical staff PM who finds that hole in the meeting, except it finds it for you first, in private, where fixing it is free.

It tells you things like "your success metric will move even if the feature fails, because of the seasonal signup spike." Three minutes of being told your metric is contaminated saves you a quarter of measuring the wrong thing. Run it on any PRD, strategy doc, or decision memo before it meets a real audience.

...𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟱𝟯 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲:

The full list of all 55, with category, author, target model, and full copy-paste text, plus the 7 libraries I pulled from, is in the article:

https://lnkd.in/dA__3xPk

What collection should I do next? Let me know in the comments.

Also, if you want to become an AI PM properly, Aakash Gupta's and I are launching our 4th Land PM Job cohort very soon. It's a 12-week program built to help you land a big tech PM role, tailored to the current market. Lots of our students are now employed, and you can be next.

Check out the training program here:
www.landpmjob.com

#ai #productmanagement #productmanager

Are you afraid of falling behind with AI usage as a Product Manager? Here are 𝟮𝟭𝟴 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 and how to install and use them:

Before I begin: every PM job description now asks for AI experience, and most PMs are bluffing their way through it. The ones getting hired understand the fundamentals: how LLMs actually work, what AI PMs own day-to-day, and how to talk about AI products without an ML degree. This lightning lesson with me and Aakash Gupta teaches exactly that.

Join us for free here: https://lnkd.in/d3QkDeKZ

Now, back to what the hook promised:

Let's be honest: Most of the AI news is either fear-mongering or pushing hype. Chasing every release is a great way to feel busy and learn nothing.

What actually moves the needle is smaller: a few tools that quietly give you back an hour a week on the work you already repeat.

So I did the boring part for you. I went through 218 Claude skills built for product managers, wrote a plain-English description for each one, and put them all in one place.

A few honest words before you dive in.

This is a catalogue, not a leaderboard. Some are brilliant. Some are niche. And not every skill will fit you.

What's gold for one PM is noise for another, depending on your company and how your team works. Try one on real work and keep what earns its place.

They won't replace you - they will help you step up and push your productivity through the roof.

Five free ones I'd use every week:

• PRD Generator by Lucky Bajaj: a solid first draft instead of a blank page
• User Interview Analyzer by Ron Yang: turns a pile of notes into themes and quotes
• Status Update Writer by Aakash Gupta: the same update, retuned for execs, engineers, and partners
• Prioritize Features by Pawel Huryn : forces you to defend the tradeoff out loud
• Idea Validator by Aakash Gupta: pokes holes in an idea before a stakeholder does

How to install one, for people who'd rather not touch anything technical. No terminal, no code, nothing on your machine. If you can upload a file, you can do this:

1. In Claude, go to Settings > Capabilities and switch on "Code execution and file creation."
2. Go to Customize > Skills, then toggle on anything you want to try.
3. To add a free skill from the list: download its folder, put it in a ZIP (the folder goes inside the ZIP, not the loose files), then in Customize > Skills hit "+" and upload it.
4. To use it, just describe your task like normal, or type "/" and pick the skill. Claude takes it from there.

One rule for peace of mind: only add skills from people you trust.

The full list of all 218, with descriptions and links, is here:

https://lnkd.in/d6TexAm8

Try one and tell me which one stuck. I read every reply.

So, what's already in your daily PM stack?

Let me know in the comments

#ai #productmanagement #productmanager

A Product Manager is nothing without the development team. Yet, it is so easy to take the spotlight as a PM. Here's how you share the glory:

1) Celebrate Team Achievements Publicly
Always acknowledge the team's hard work in company meetings, emails, or on social media. A public shout-out boosts morale and shows that you value their contributions. Perhaps invite a team member to join or replace you in a big presentation of a successful release.

2) Share Credit Generously
When discussing successes, use "we" instead of "I". Highlight individual contributions and how they impacted the project's success. I often forget that even though I truly believe in every word of this post.

3) Provide Growth Opportunities
Offer team members opportunities to learn new skills or take on new responsibilities. Investing in their growth shows you care about their professional development. Work with their team leader so everyone has a varied set of tasks to complete to make the work interesting.

4) Listen Actively
Make time to hear your team's ideas and concerns. Active listening fosters a collaborative environment where everyone feels heard and valued. Never skip a retro!

5) Give Constructive Feedback
Provide timely and constructive feedback that helps team members improve and grow. Be specific about what they did well and where they can enhance their skills. Remember to provide negative feedback privately.

6) Recognize Efforts, Not Just Results
Acknowledge the hard work and dedication, even if the project didn't turn out as expected. This encourages a culture of effort and resilience.

7) Foster a Positive Team Culture
Encourage teamwork and camaraderie. Organize team-building activities or informal gatherings to strengthen relationships. It can be as trivial as taking lunch together.

8) Be Transparent
Share information about your vision, company goals, and any changes. Transparency builds trust and shows respect for the team's role in the bigger picture. Be their corporate ally!

9) Empower Decision-Making
Allow team members to make decisions in their areas of expertise. This trust empowers them and increases their investment in the project's success.

10) Express Gratitude Personally
A simple "thank you" can go a long way. Take the time to personally thank team members for their contributions. Name the success so it is not a lazy, generic gratitude.

There you have it, my 10 tips to ensure your development team feels valued and appreciated.

Do you share your glory with your team?

Let me know in the comments.

Land your new Product job with Aakash Gupta and me! The 4th edition of our LandPMJob cohort starts very soon. We've already helped dozens of people find a new job in this crazy market, and we hope you'll be next.

Sign up today: www.landpmjob.com

#productmanagement #productmanager #teamappreciation

I hope you do realize that your dream Product job can become a curse of ongoing stress if you let it. Here are the 6 biggest stress factors and how to manage them:

1) Too many expectations, too few tools and resources to achieve them

Why it happens: PMs are often seen as the "do-it-all" person. They are expected to deliver impactful results with limited time, team, or budget.

Solution: Quantify what you would need to meet expectations. Show data and be vocal about needing support or lowering expectations until you get what you need.

2) Too many things to add/change/fix in the product

Why it happens: Everyone has a "small request", and somehow your backlog balloons into an endless wish list with no clear expectations of what each ticket needs.

Solution: You can say "no" to stakeholders more, but you can also use the help of my newest patron, Thumba.ai. It can generate a comprehensive set of user stories and acceptance criteria (and testing plans), which otherwise would have taken so much time. This way, you can come to a backlog session with polished tickets and quickly tell an opportunity from nonsense and get to work!

Now you can integrate Thumba with Jira or Azure board in order to quickly generate great user stories easily.

Check them out here: www.thumba.ai

3) Too many meetings to do actual work

Why it happens: PMs are the glue between multiple teams, which makes you a meeting magnet. But too many meetings mean no time for actual strategy, problem-solving, or execution.

Solution: Prioritize the 3 most important goals each week and avoid meetings that do not contribute to those goals.

4) The Dev team is making it harder for you

Why it happens: This can happen when developers resist taking ownership of challenges. It’s frustrating and often stems from a lack of confidence or clarity in their roles.

Solution: Force them to be more senior, take responsibility for removing roadblocks, and provide end-to-end solutions. They will resist, but will thank you later

5) Unrealistic goals

Why it happens: Unrealistic goals often come from leadership underestimating the complexity of the work or setting targets based on aspirations rather than realities.

Solution: Only one really: Be vocal when the goals are being announced/revealed. Your silence will be taken as acceptance, and that will come with an expectation of hitting the unrealistic goal.

6) Being in a constant firefighting mode

Why it happens: When bugs, outages, and emergencies dominate your time, strategic work takes a backseat. Features get delayed, stakeholders get frustrated, and the cycle continues.

Solution: If bugs and issues delay your features, it's time to act. Stop everything, put everyone into debug mode to find common cause(s) of the fires and prevent them as much as possible.

So, are you stressed way too much in your Product job?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #mentalhealth

Having too many meetings can leave you with no time to do actual work. Here are 10 ways to regain your time, skip some of the meetings, and optimize your productivity:

1) Become the master of your time
As many people cancel/reschedule their meetings with you, you can do the same to them. That is for any reason, including having too many meetings a day. As per the picture, you need the time to write that PRD!

2) Look for meetings that bring as much value as possible to your output
If you will do better by working on a backlog or preparing for a different meeting, say, team refinement, do it! Meetings do not have a condition-free highest priority in your schedule.

3) Book “focus time” in your calendar to prevent new meetings
But change the slot and don't call it “focus time”. Otherwise, expect an email/meeting with the words: “I saw focus time in your calendar, and my thing is really important, so please accept my meeting”.

4) If you want to do something in peace and focus, a home office is the way to go
People walking up to you and talking to you is also a meeting :) Of course, not all homes are alike, and if your family is attention-demanding, working in a meeting room or Starbucks is your next best thing!

5) Monitor your energy levels, mental health, and output
Too many meetings can be as much of a problem as an aggressive coworker or a mobbing boss when it comes to long-term stress. If you have problems with that, there is no shame in talking about it with your manager.

6) Book lunches and breaks in your calendar
People will be hesitant to hold a meeting when a slot is already occupied. You, on the other hand, need your energy to function.

7) Realize your importance
While you are often important to the decision process, very often you need the bottom line to reach a verdict. Often, you don't need to be there for a technical discussion, and it's ok to say so!

8) If a meeting could have been an email, say it!
Some people think a meeting is the most effective way to achieve their goals. If you don't teach them otherwise, how will they learn?

9) Video recordings are your friend
You can’t be idly sitting in on every call and listening. You can, however, listen to a recording of a meeting you couldn’t attend! Recordings don’t ask questions :)

10) Don’t start the meetings at the full hour
If you start at 5 after the full hour, that guarantees you a moment of a break for a snack or to gather your thoughts!

Bottom line: Put in the effort, and meetings will stop feeling like such a waste of time!

So, do you find time to work between all your meetings?

Let me know in the comments.

Would you like to become a better product manager every day? Sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ddD_FU5q

Looking to land your next product management job? Aakash Gupta and I can help:

http://www.landpmjob.com/

#productmanagement #productmanager #meetings

As always, thank you 🥞 Carl Vellotti for the original image inspiration.

It is so stressful to look for a new product job for months, even years. Here is how I can help to cut it to a few weeks (with proof):

The PM job market changed. There are far fewer offers and even more fierce competition. The old tactics don't seem to work anymore. As time goes by, the situation only worsens, and your morale drops.

Meanwhile, people with half your experience are getting hired because they know how to position themselves.

How?

They have the right strategy.

Strategy, I can teach you.

Land PM Job cohort we lead with Aakash Gupta fixes this with the only end-to-end PM job program that exists:

- Live weekly instruction on resume, LinkedIn, portfolio, and outreach
- Personal asset review from me before you ever walk into an interview
- 5+ mock interviews with coaches who've been CPO, Group PM at Meta, Senior PM at Microsoft
- One-on-ones every 2 weeks on your specific blockers
- AI PM specialization; 30% of open PM roles today are AI-focused
- 2+ interview guarantee or your money back

The promised proof?

23 Cohort #1 members landed PM roles. Here's what that looked like in practice.

Derek Mills rewrote his resume in Week 2. Week 3, he got torn apart on a case live in front of the cohort. Three days before his final round at Finexio, we spent 90 minutes on his specific case together.

He got the offer. Lead PM. Eight weeks after Day 1.

Bree Thomas came in as a PM, left with a VP offer from Homebot.ai. Mid-program. By Week 5, her behavioral answers were the clearest in the cohort. She'd practiced them enough times that they stopped sounding practiced.

Satheesh Ayyagari had multiple offers at gWorks after working on execution cases live before his final rounds.

Cohort #2 is running the same pattern now. 10 placements so far. Several are still in late rounds.

It's not magic. It's reps with feedback, starting Week 1.

Cohort #3. May 4. 8 days.

Secure your seat today:

www.landpmjob.com

If you do not plan to join, while still looking for a product job... why not?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanager #jobsearch

Is it just me, or are most of the Product Discovery efforts a waste of time? In theory, the agile process should handle what the discovery aims to deliver. Let me explain:

Let me just say, I'm not an enemy or hater of Product Discovery. I'm actually a big fan!

When used right and with common sense, discovery will allow you to literally create a very cheap MVP that will allow you to successfully prove (or disprove) your product hypothesis and thus save a lot of development budget.

That being said...

I feel that Discovery can turn into something that becomes a mandatory "process extender" just for the sake of following the Product Discovery trend. Thus, it all starts to resemble walking in circles and second-guessing oneself as a Product Manager for WAY too long.

This is not agile, this isn't effective.

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg's motto "Move Fast and Break Things” is taking it a step too far in 2024, but "Released is better than perfect" should be something at the back of your Product head all the time!

So, when is Discovery helpful, and when is it an overkill? Let me give you my personal list, but I hope to hear back from you, dear reader, in the comments if you agree with my points and what you would add to it!

When to invest in Discovery (to name a few):
• When you have several ways to address a product problem, you can quickly organize a larger group of users to pitch in on which solution to prioritize.
• When you want to better understand your users/market (as a process parallel to the actual development pipeline).
• Also in this parallel pipeline: when you are working to pivot to create new products/verticals
• When a solution is high risk/high reward, you need arguments to convince senior leadership to take a chance.
• When a discovery process is way shorter than the development process, and you can learn early on if the investment is sound.
• As a vector/type of Product brainstorm
  
When is Discovery an overkill?
• When you can quickly build an MVP that can be tested on your real users
• When you are not sure what UX to use -> just choose one and use data and heatmaps to improve it later.
• When you are implementing something that is a well-known, successful solution copied from, i.e., your competitor.
• When you need a quick win, especially if the Discovery processes aren't mature and can be used easily.
• When you can produce data/research that also gives you confidence in your Backlog item.
• When you are not sure which Discovery technique will work for a particular project.

Did you ever feel like you were losing time while doing discovery?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #productdiscovery

It can be extremely stressful when an authority figure, like a manager or CEO, comes to you with a bad idea. Here are 8 ways to say "No" effectively:

1) Force the CEO/manager into a discussion
Don't just say "yes" or nod. If the CEO/manager wants you to do something, you need to do your due diligence. Having a conversation is the first reasonable step.

2) Ask for the reasoning
You need to understand what user/business problem the CEO/manager wants to solve. Perhaps you can offer a better alternative? Or at least understand that the request is not that stupid from a wider perspective.

3) Ask for data
To have the request added as a task to the backlog, you need data to allow prioritization and to estimate the impact hypothesis. If the figure of authority gave you the request, perhaps it comes with some handy data. You wouldn't act on an opinion, now would you?

4) Ask for time
If there is no data and no good reason, you will need time to look into this. Anything stupid on the surface can be a hidden gem (say, the original premise of Twitter: Who would want to run a microblog with only 160 chars to work with?), and you need time to evaluate.

5) Perform your research
Is there any data on the request? How did competitors solve the same problem? Did science tackle it? Was it tried in the company before? You know, the usual backlog item stuff :)

6) Prioritize the request in your backlog
Now that you can assess the impact, certainty, risk, and perhaps the effort needed, it's time to see where the CEO/Manager mandate items rank in the list of priorities. If it's a round the bottom or middle, time to:

7) Arrange a follow-up meeting
You are now able to speak with the stakeholder again on a more equal footing. This should be set as soon as possible. Perhaps you will need to timebox your research phase to adjust to the other side's calendar.

8) Demonstrate the cost of prioritizing the request
Show the CEO/Manager all your other plans, the problems they solve, and the expected impact. The stakeholder will have a clear visibility of where his/her request ranks in comparison.

Afterward, you shouldn't even need to say "No". The CEO should withdraw her/his request!

Would you be able to say "No" to a high authority figure?

Let me know in the comments.

Are you sick and tired of a role that forces you to say "No" too often? Time to land your next product job. Get a new PM job in 2026 with Aakash Gupta and my cohort "Land PM job". We're starting the 2nd cohort next week, after already getting many people hired from the first one. Check it out here:

www.landpmjob.com

#productmanagement #productmanager #leadership

Original meme template: shencomix

I've seen corporate Product Managers dreaming of working in a start-up and vice versa. Which side is better, though? Let's settle this once and for all:

I've worked in both types of companies, and here's my breakdown:

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁-𝗨𝗽
Working in an early company can be appealing. You have the real power to shape the product, and only the CEO can stand in your way. You are free to take risks and move fast. Your small team will feel like brothers in arms, and you’ll often have direct access to users, enabling quick iterations.

But that freedom comes with stress. Start-ups are unpredictable. You carry the weight of the product’s success on your shoulders. It can be exciting, but also exhausting, with long hours and few processes to guide you. That is no 9-5 job - it's an ongoing battle for survival.

If you prefer to relax and calm over a stressful roller-coaster ride, perhaps you should consider:

𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲
Big company PM jobs, especially at big names like FAANG or MANGA, offer structure, stability, and opportunities to focus on your core Product Manager responsibilities. You’ll have clear processes, a system of benefits, and room to grow within different teams or levels of seniority.

However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Decision-making is slower, takes almost forever, and is bogged down by dependencies and approvals. You might be far removed from users, relying on analytics and aggregated feedback rather than direct insights. And let’s be honest, not every team in a big company has the same passion or drive you’ll find in start-ups.

That said, there’s a built-in safety net. Even if your project fails, you’re less likely to lose your job. And great managers (if you’re lucky enough to work with them) can turn this structured environment into a growth powerhouse for your career.

With all that, a question remains:

𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲?
Neither start-ups nor corporates are universally better. It boils down to the people you’ll work with and the culture of the company. The best environment is the one where you’ll feel supported, inspired, and empowered to succeed. It's also not universal: Some start-ups will just develop nicely without you sacrificing your soul, and some corporations will keep you at night with deadlines.

Thus, focus less on the size of the company and more on the vibe and reputation. If the people are passionate, the process is reasonable, and the vision excites you, go for it! Ignore whether it’s a scrappy start-up or a corporate giant, great people make all the difference.

Which one would you prefer?

Let me know in the comments :)

Also, if you want to get a new PM job in 2026, Aakash Gupta and my cohort "Land PM job" started enrolling for the 2nd edition, after already getting people hired in the middle of the first one! Enroll here:

www,landpmjob.com

#productmanagement #startups #corporate

The world of product management and business is changing. Or is it really? Let's talk numbers:

I think I finally nailed how I feel about the AI craze, and happy to share my thoughts with you.

Let's start with 20 stats from 2025 provided by Zams that you should consider:

• 34.6% of enterprise software will include agentic AI by 2028 (up from <1% in 2024)
• Agentic AI is growing at 46.2% CAGR, reaching $53.7B by 2030
• 29% of companies already use agentic AI; 44% plan to in the next year
• Agentic AI delivers 4.3× ROI, with average payback in 11 months
• 77% of organizations will use agentic AI in at least one function by 2025
• 18–20% of daily business decisions will be made autonomously by 2028
• Agentic AI cuts operations costs by 43%
• 61% of enterprises plan to increase agentic AI investment within 2 years
• 67% fewer manual errors thanks to agentic workflows
• 51% improvement in process efficiency
• 40% faster cycle times
• 65% of automated workflows now include real-time decision-making
• Compliance improves by 46% when workflows go agentic
• 60%+ drop in human intervention on routine tasks
• 63% reduction in inventory holding costs with AI-powered supply chains
• 33% faster deliveries thanks to real-time logistics optimization
• 78% of finance-related routine work is already automated
• 68% improvement in fraud detection accuracy
• 34% increase in lead conversion through AI-driven personalization
• 63% of software testing is now automated

And what does it all mean?

Based on those and other numbers, the term "AI-first" is simply stupid. No company that adapts AI should think of itself as an AI company.

Otherwise, we would be ending the era of "Excel-first", "Jira-first," or "internet-first" companies. Not to mention "Profit-first" enterprises.

So, what is it about?

Efficiency.

Making low-level time-consuming data manipulations, be it images, text, documents, etc., way quicker and more efficient.

Will it lose some jobs? Perhaps, but that's not the point, nor a significant impact.

It's about making easy work, instant work, difficult to easy, and impossible to difficult.

Do you see the change around you?

I'd love to hear your take in the comments section.

Looking for a new PM job?

On Tuesday, April 7th at 9 AM PDT, join Aakash Gupta for a free 45-minute masterclass on AI PM job interview rounds.

We're covering STAR+M, the behavioral framework that turns your stories into evidence, and SIGNAL, the AI PM framework built for rounds at companies like OpenAI, Meta AI, and Figma. Both come with before/after examples you can apply to your next interview the same day

Register at the link:
https://lnkd.in/dd225NsN

#productmanagement #productmanager #ai

Today, I'm unveiling my new startup, which builds AI that truly understands what it does. I need your help finding investors. Here's why you should care:

Ever since the AI era began and the dust settled a little, it was clear that the LLMs are powerful, incredible, and innovative. However, the value proposition was also inflated by marketing efforts.

Now we know that hallucinations, weird behaviours, and being a "yes-bot" are fundamental issues baked into LLM fundamentals. Not to mention the devastation that the database centers bring to the planet and the neighborhoods.

Still, the dreamer in me wanted to see something that better fits into the initial AI vision.

Thus, I've joined Thinking One and their product: AdamOS. AdamOS is an AI platform that offers transparent and reliable AI functionality for everyone.

In short, Adam OS is a collection of intertwined skills that work in cooperation, almost like a real human brain.

So, rather than put the knowledge of the whole internet into one grinder, we add skills one by one and then join them together to recreate the journey a human brain takes to develop.

Thus, once we teach it to understand text, it will use these skills across all given tasks.

Once we teach it, what an apple is, it will understand the whole concept of this fruit.

Once we show them how to operate a robot's arm, it will use it reliably.

Once we introduce the value of human life and the need to protect people, AdamOS will always take this into account.

So what does that all mean?

It means that if we ask it to put an apple from one table to another, it will do so without hitting the person who was just passing by. That will happen without accounting for this specific scenario, and with all the AI being processed on the machine with minimal resources.

Why are we seeking investors for our pre-seed round? Well, building those skills takes time and human effort. With the strong fundamentals in place for AdamOS, we want to start hiring people to help out with building those skills.

Thinking One didn't bring me on board because I'm a name.

I know what makes a great product.

Thus, I can assure any investor that we come with a business plan for AdamOS being profitable, as early as possible, ideally from the first client.

Let me stress:

There is no hype in what I'm saying.
There is no over-exaggeration.
There is no "fake it until you make it."

It's only hard work to create a new, different AI that will meet the needs of the current world, without causing new problems to solve.

To learn more about Adam OS and Thinking One, visit:

https://thkg.one/

Or DM me to schedule a meeting about the investment opportunity.

Does this pitch sound exciting?

Let me know in the comments.

#ai #investment #startup

You are an experienced and talented Product Manager, yet you struggle through painful job interviews.
Why? How to overcome this? Here are a few tips:

First, let’s get one thing straight: There is nothing wrong with you.

Being good at PM interviews is a different skill from being good at product management. Just like discovery, stakeholder management, or roadmap thinking, it’s a muscle. If you don’t train it intentionally, it will fail you under pressure.

I can’t give you time. But I can give you guidance.

Here’s what actually helps:

1) Learn and improve with every interview
Treat interviews like another chance to practice them. After each one, summarize what aspects still need work. Patterns show up fast if you look for them. Most candidates repeat the same mistakes for months because they never do a proper retro.

2) Practice common interview questions
This way, you will have your best answer at your fingertips rather than making it up on the spot. You will also avoid common pitfalls, for example, “Tell me about a failure” is rarely about failure, but about learning and improving from it.

3) Product Management fundamentals > jumping to solutions
Strong PMs often lose points by skipping framing. They rush to solutions because that’s what real work rewards. Interviews reward the opposite. Problem definition, user clarity, constraints, and success metrics. If you don’t anchor there first, even a great idea sounds random.

4) Use a visual aid to help structure your long answer
A simple mental model works wonders. “I’ll walk you through this in three steps,” immediately calms the room. It signals control, not hesitation. You’re not thinking out loud. You’re leading the conversation.

5) Start with a short, 1-sentence answer and add a summary at the end
Interviewers get lost. They always do. Open with your direction in one sentence. Then explain. Then close with a crisp takeaway. This isn’t redundancy. It’s empathy for a tired human on the other side of the table.

6) Keep relaxed, smiling, and confident, even if it is just an act
Interviews are emotional theater. Confidence is often perceived before competence. You don’t need to oversell, but you do need to look comfortable owning your decisions.

Listen, following those pieces of advice might not land you a job at your next interview. It is a process to follow and improve with every try, until it's your second nature, just like it is to find the right product solution to the hardest of challenges.

Did you ever struggle through a job interview?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagement #productmanager #jobsearch

Am I the only one who thought AI would fix meetings… and it actually made them worse?
Here's how to fix it:

Last week, I jumped into what was supposed to be a quick sync with our engineering lead. 7 people invited. I open the participant list and count 12 bots. Twelve. It was so hard to tell who actually showed up and who was represented by an AI.

At some point, someone shared their screen, and three different notetakers sent a notification that they had "detected a presentation." The engineering lead thought we had been hacked.

At the same time, we, the product managers, have always had way too many meetings. Some of them really guide your strategy and roadmap and are essential for deciding on the right future of your product. Others are just noise, eating into the time you need for real, focused work.

But even on the important ones, let's be honest: we miss stuff. We forget to issue follow-ups, assign tasks, and capture decisions. It's simply not possible to pay full attention during multiple back-to-back calls all day.

So what do you do? You need those meeting notes, but without bots around to cause confusion.

Here's the solution:

Meet Granola.

The note-taker with zero bots in your call.

You install it.
You connect your calendar.
That is it.

It just works.

You show up to your meeting like a normal human, and when it is done, you get structured, searchable notes, neatly organized and tailored to your needs.

No bots inflating the participant list.
No awkward "XYZ Notetaker has joined the meeting."

Granola even connects with Slack, your knowledge base, and your AI tools through an MCP server, so your meeting content becomes useful context for everything you work on after.

Check out Granola for free for a month using my link:

https://lnkd.in/di8eTHXX

Do you feel like bots have taken over your calls, too?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanager #productmanagement #sponsorship

While being a Product Manager can be an amazing experience, landing this job has become incredibly hard. Here's what to do to improve your odds:

1) Revamp your LinkedIn for inbound offers
Your LinkedIn is no longer a CV. It is a landing page. Recruiters spend seconds, not minutes, scanning it for relevance, seniority, and clarity. Your headline, summary, and recent activity should clearly signal what problems you solve, at what scale, and in which domain. If you rely only on applications, you are already at a disadvantage.

2) Grow your contacts here
Most PM roles are filled through networks long before they hit job boards. That does not mean spamming connection requests. It means intentional networking with recruiters, hiring managers, and peers in your space.

3) Improve your resume, weekly
A resume is not a static document. Every interview, rejection, and feedback loop should improve it. You learn which bullets resonate, which metrics matter, and which experiences confuse people. Small weekly tweaks beat massive rewrites once every six months.

4) Apply a lot, in a bespoke way
Volume matters, but only when paired with relevance. A tailored CV and a short, thoughtful message dramatically increase your response rate. Hiring managers can spot generic applications instantly. Your goal is to make it obvious why you fit this role, not why you want any role.

5) Practice the craft, especially in the AI space
PM interviews are no longer just about frameworks. You are expected to reason about tradeoffs, data, ambiguity, and increasingly AI-driven products. That means practicing real case studies, not memorizing answers. If you cannot clearly explain how AI changes discovery, delivery, or risk, you will fall behind.

6) Upskill
The market rewards relevance, not tenure. Learning never stopped being part of the job, but now it is brutally visible when you do not keep up. Whether it is AI, analytics, experimentation, or stakeholder management, deliberate skill building pays off fast. Courses, side projects, and writing are all valid paths if done seriously.

7) Post on LinkedIn
Posting is not about vanity metrics. It is about proof of thinking. When you write, you demonstrate clarity, experience, and perspective at scale. Recruiters and hiring managers read silently long before they ever reach out.

8) Keep this up methodically
None of this works if done for two weeks. Job searching is a long game that rewards consistency and discipline. Set a cadence you can maintain without burning out. The people who win are rarely the loudest, but almost always the most consistent.

If you are looking to land a PM job in 2026 and would like to learn more, be sure to register for my live event on January 15 at 12 pm CET. Register here:

https://lnkd.in/dXp_mCrX

Shall you join me?

What is your biggest hurdle in landing your next Product job?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanagment #jobsearch #aipm

The best way for a product manager to attract new roles passively is to become a product content creator. However, where to start? Well...

User-generated content is only going to get bigger from here, so there hasn’t been a better time to start.

I have partnered with folks at Power 20 bootcamp to bring FREE strategy calls for 20 of you, exclusively for my LinkedIn network.

Check out the link to the training in the comments :)

Begin your creator journey today!

#creator #partnership #productmanagement

As if meetings weren't soul and time draining enough, there are dozens of follow-up emails waiting for you afterward. Here’s a solution:

Stop me if you've heard this before. You've had a long meeting, lots of fruitful agreements, great ideas, and positive energy. Of course, not everything is known, and some people leave with action items or open questions they couldn't resolve in the room.

What do you need to do? Send follow-up emails.

Easy, right? Writing emails is basically a product manager's job.

However, what if you have 5 or 6 meetings in a series and you don't have time for that?

Moreover, if you even decide to do it at the end of the day, you’ll probably forget half of it by the time you need to write it down.

Fortunately, Granola comes to the rescue.

Granola is an AI notepad that uses your direct meeting audio to create structured and searchable notes from the meeting.

That's not what I'm focusing on today, though. What I would like to highlight is that they released a new feature called follow-ups. With it, based on the meeting, whenever it makes sense, it generates those follow-up emails for you.

It doesn't send anything without you.
It doesn't take initiative or your agency.

It just helps you draft the straightforward emails that you would have done yourself. It captures the action items and open questions that are logical for anyone (or anything) who sat at the meeting.

Anyway, once you complete the basic setup, all you need to do is sign off, and those emails will be sent for you. It will adjust the style of the email to how you spoke during the meeting.

Honestly, for me, it sounds like a brilliant addition to Granola's features. I know this will help me a lot, as very often while mentoring, I promise to send several links and materials after the call. Actually doing it is a pain.

Pain that Granola can take away.

Check more details about this feature here:

https://lnkd.in/d4baH_H3

Would you be open to delegating your follow-up emails to Granola?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanager #meeting #sponsorship

It's really stressful every time you need to make a product decision. Insights and research that should help with it take a lot of time. Here's how to balance that:

The world of product management is really about risk management. You need to make a call with what you know, and the more you know, the more educated your call can be.

At the same time, knowledge isn't free. It takes time for discovery, for research, for AI tools. Not to mention the time and uncertainty of results that come with it. Okay.

So it feels like it's a scale from making rash decisions to making overeducated decisions. One can cost you dearly when they don't pan out, and you have to justify your decision process. The others will also make you look bad if you spend thousands of dollars on meaningless insights.

The key to making this right?

Here's how you do it:

1) Start with your product goals.
Finding a solution to a problem you have to solve is not an easy process. Those will likely require lots of development time for a risky bet. Thus, whatever you come up with has to have a realistic chance of pushing you towards your goal. If you're supposed to bet big, you need to have a perspective of a big return at the end.

2) Continue using unlimited creativity.
You will be bogged down with technical limitations, deadlines, and a scarcity of both AI tool credits and people to help you. However, your pitch should never be about realism at this stage. Instead, grab your AI tools and create the best possible version of your idea. This way, it's very easy to create amazing prototypes that can ignite any stakeholders' imagination.

3) Get your team's input.
Once you get your best possible case scenario, talk with the team about how long it will take and how feasible it is. Don't worry about PRDs' technical specifications. Focus on user experience and whether it follows point one. Following that, you can seek stakeholders' opinions and approvals, but you may want to hold off until:

4) Figure out the MVP and beyond.
Your minimum viable product has one mission: to prove that any large endeavor that you are taking on makes sense and has a realistic chance of helping you meet your goals. As long as it can wow the user as it wowed you in step two and your team in step three, you've nailed it. Bonus points for a roadmap of updates once MVP is proven successful.

Now you have everything to decide whether you want to proceed with your idea or not. Everything should be clear, and it probably didn't cost you more than a few AI tool credits and a meeting or two.

Of course, you can get fancier if you discover that the MVP is very costly with a discovery process, but that's a story for another post.

Have you ever had a product decision paralysis?

Let me know in the comments.

#productmanager #productmanagement #discovery