Promo image for Kate Leto and Martin Eriksson event - full details at the link.
London people! Next week, I'm hosting Kate Leto and @bfgmartin.bsky.social for a free event. Join us!
Leadership is harder than ever - learn how to thrive while everyone is being disrupted.
RSVP: go.outofowls.com/kate
Today's acronym, for OpenClaw & the like: MaaS - Malware as a Service
Hey London people! The Female Product Lead and I are hosting Kate Leto and Martin Eriksson on 23 April, about how to thrive as a leader when everything is being disrupted. Join us!
Signup at go.outofowls.com/kate
Quite.
(that's the American quite, as in 'very'. Not the Anglo version, which is a bit derisory.)
Edge cases: Don't use this phrase to describe groups of people. Edge cases only apply to a process. Edge cases are other ways to do the process when the context is slightly different, like "it's below freezing" or "several people are out sick today."
Every now and then, I think I understand why roosters start the day screaming
This
If you see this, post a concert photo you took
Dirty secret - he posed for that. Good silly fun.
If you see this, post a concert photo you took
There are 5 basic strategy problems I keep seeing.
1- You don’t actually have a strategy
2- You have lots of Strategies
3- That was Last Week’s Strategy!
4- Communication, Communication, Communication
5- The difference between what we SAY and what we DO
So if making things - janky as they might be - is no longer the constraint, what needs to change in our approach? How can we learn quickly, with minimal cost and risk, and help our organisations realise value at pace?
outofowls.com/blog/ai-just...
AI-based tools have fundamentally changed this. We can now build things quickly, and we can do it relatively cheaply. The idea that your CEO brought up this morning? You can have a prototype ready by the end of the week. And if you don’t the CEO might have done it themself.
3/
The way that companies work is fundamentally changing.
Classic Product Management is based on a simple idea: Waterfall = bad, as we don’t know if something has value for a long time. Agile = good 'cos we can experiment and learn quickly, 'cos building things is time-consuming and expensive.
2/
It's Friday. I've had a lot of interesting chats this week. So let's do this:
AI Just Broke Your Strategy. Now What?
outofowls.com/blog/ai-just...
1/
Screenshot that reads: It was like I got to when visits the point, because at two they don't come out there. Say potato basically don't history.
One of the teams I'm working with is French. I'm bilingual, but unfortunately, only in English & American. Their English is strong, but not always up to the job.
It's a miracle that we can collaborate, with transcription enabled and real-time translations, and that it works at all.
But sometimes...
Extraordinary Chickens book cover, showing a truly extraordinary chicken.
Back when I was a journalist (well, music critic/editor), I grabbed this book from the free pile in the office kitchen. Still my favorite.
You're just not hipster enough!
I'm waiting for artisinal apps and sites. 100% hand coded.
Using objective tools like the Reforge PM Competency Model and holding dedicated "Development Conversations" every six weeks removes subjectivity from performance reviews and provides actionable growth plans.
From @randysilver.outofowls.com:
www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-avoid...
MUST OPINION HARDER!
NICE. Been talking about this a lot lately - about the difference between having an Ambition and an actual Strategy.
youtu.be/W9Eh3wIEA6k
And on what good leadership looks like:
outofowls.com/blog/the-sec...
I see these patterns again and again.
DORA is an interesting place to start, too.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art not as hot
Tamerlane was looking for someone to teach his donkey to talk. Nobody wanted the job. Finally the wise men of the dunes - Hodja Nasreddin took the position and promised to teach the donkey to talk in 10 years time. - Are you crazy? his friends asked him. - Not really, Hodja answered, the money is good the job is not hard and in 10 years a lot might happen: I might die, or Tamerlane might die or surely enough this old donkey might die.
A 14th century parable about agentic AI transformation
How to connect product features to company goals w/ @randysilver.outofowls.com www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-conne...
Check it out!
4 Practical takeaways you’ll get at From Magic Pixie Dust to Strategic Decisions: Prioritising AI Requests
Why the word AI Breaks Your Prioritisation: How the hype around artificial intelligence escalates subjective bias and derails strategic decision-making... And what you can do about it. The Cynefin Advantage: A proven framework, adapted for discussing the challenges and opportunities around AI, helping you distinguish between processes that need simple automation and those requiring human judgment.
Your Tech Stack Decision Tree: From RPA to LLM, from ML to Agentic — which approaches work for specific situations, with real examples. Making Better Decisions, Faster: How to have collaborative conversations across teams that turn "Magic Pixie Dust" requests into prioritised, well-scoped product opportunities.
From Magic Pixie Dust to Strategic Decisions: Prioritising AI Requests - Randy Silver Jan 28 Wednesday 28 January 17:00 - 18:00 GMT https://luma.com/ybdbtxi2
Can’t we JUST do this with AI?
Prioritisation has always been hard - but the biggest challenge now is using the right terms to discuss AI requests. The possibilities are exciting, but it’s not magic fairy dust.
@edbiden.bsky.social @hustlebadger.bsky.social
Sign up here: luma.com/ybdbtxi2?tk=...
Thanks, @adrianhoward.com ! That's lovely company to be in.
Patrick NDJIENTCHEU, Damilola Adelekan, Matthew Certner, Elena Luneva, Jason Philip Sparks, Vidya Dinamani, Nina Olding, John Cutler, Teresa Huang, Prerna Singh, Matt Watson, Axel Sooriah
See y'all next year!
