being right is a trap you either die a hater or live long enough to be wrong

Great post
Mindset for trying out AI tools as quality improves

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘨𝘰. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬"

substack.com/home/post/p-...

So stop when you feel you learned about 70-80% of what can be learned. The other 20 or so percent would demand exponential amount of interviews, so not worth the effort/time.

3/3

The maximum isn’t a number either. it’s about knowing when to stop. You stop when the main insightful patterns are repeated, and you’re no longer learning anything new that passes your meaningful/useful threshold.

2/3

How many users to talk to as part of discovery?
It's not about the number.

Minimum is the amount willing to talk to you in the ballpark timespan that you have. Depends on your assessment and your manager's appetite for discovery (could come out to be 1-3 interviews).

1/3

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10/

@johncutle.fish’s attached outline of ‘levels’ is not directly about this subject, but it's the most practical I’ve found. I sometimes show it to reps for discovery orientation.

9/

Forms are easy to 'abuse'. The real value is in the follow-up questions. Problem & solution spaces are nested, and raw feedback is usually solution-oriented. The challenge is helping reps go 1 or 2 levels up to uncover the real problem (solution-agnostic).

8/

Discovery is a skill that has to be practiced in real life, ideally with guidance. Some people won’t be great at it or motivated to do it, and that’s fine.

7/

Yes, the above is time consuming. But after doing this a few times with a customer-facing rep, the quality of feedback improves dramatically. It also helps you spot thoughtful clients who can clearly articulate their use cases around your product.

6/

Biggest issue with feedback is willingness of the rep to submit it. Their motivation depends on 2 things:
- Friction in submission
- Knowing the feedback will be valued and addressed (not necessarily acted on). Reaching out to rep right after they submit covers 90% of this.

5/

2. Keep the submission process frictionless. There’s a tendency to try to find the right balance between making the form short AND making it detailed enough to get context. Forget the “AND”. Every field is friction.

4/

Two notes on the feedback form for reps submitting to PMs:

1. Don’t call it ‘Feature request’. Use ‘Product feedback’ or ‘Ideas’. ‘Request’ is transactional. It reinforces a culture of “if client pays or threatens churn, we’ll do it.” Leads to messy, unopinionated products.

3/

After the rep gathers context from the client (ideally recorded/written by client), give them feedback about their discovery session. You might ask to reach out or talk with the client directly. But goal is to give the rep a chance to practice their product discovery skills.

2/

Ask how the feedback came in. Client call? Email? DM? For calls, get the recording. For written feedback, get the thread of client’s wording. Review the relevant part, then give the rep suggested follow-up questions and explain what you’re trying to uncover.

1/

When a request lacks context, get on a call with the rep. Slack works, but a 5-min call right after the feedback arrives is better. It’s fresh for client/rep. Rep can reach out again to client in a non-committal way. Also shows you care, motivating rep to put in added effort

B2B product managers get lots of feature requests from customer-facing teams. We try to get as much of the "why" behind the request

I see it as a micro-opportunity for me to coach CSMs, Sales & Support reps. This way, over time, the quality of feedback will improve

A thread 🧵

PM's role in decision-making per Kevin Weil, OpenAI CPO. Via @lennysan.bsky.social

Decisions don't have to come from PM. PM should guide the room toward quality decision

Reminds me of @moskov.goodventures.org Asana cofounder: Prep meetings with “What questions do we want to answer?”, and not goals

Resentment and empathy towards leadership A post about mindset orientation for product managers (and others)

I assume you mean non-AI generated posts like "90% of product managers don't know how to use this tool/framework"

I'm trying to do that below. No intent to sell anything. Just sharing of experiences of an IC PM and lessons that helped me.

open.substack.com/pub/guypeled...

Resentment and empathy towards leadership A post about mindset orientation for product managers (and others)

Product management is such a misunderstood role. Mainly because it’s unique per company.
But a lot of the "it's unique per company" is actually "it's unique per founder".

A blog post about resentment and empathy towards leadership.

www.guypeled.com/p/resentment...

Product managers watching users engaging with their feature-rich but usability-poor product

‘Who are our customers?’ is more elementary than “How is this segment of customer different than the other?’ I’ll trust my employee faster if I can tell she’s increasing how fine the grain is on her questions as we go. When that happens, we’re on track.” I’d rather get sophisticated questions than simple answers from new hires. People often don't think that asking questions is indicative of quick learning. They think it's the opposite.

This is great advice for new hires. It's even better advice for candidates.
You'd want to be perceived as a fast learner. Best indication for that is the level of granularity of your questions during the interview.

Below is from this excellent article:
review.firstround.com/the-indispen...

Many Product Managers still work as if their job is to make decisions.

No.

Your job is ensuring decision quality and that a decision is made.
Your job is to extract the best decision out of the room.

Making a decision yourself is last resort to prevent death by committee.