Test-n-Tell - tiny apps, Big ideas

  Like it or not, lots of people are trying vibe coding. App Store and Google Play are flooded with new apps and games. Product Hunt launches, and domain sales are rising. But is any of it good? And does it matter?

  Whether we like it or not, we all need to be competition-aware as PMs. Most of us have competitors, and understanding what they do might help us to win in the market.

  Lately, I've been trying and reviewing modern AI agent tools that can write code, create designs and build full working products. While doing that, I realised PMs need to steal another practice from the engineering playbook - peer reviews.

  Predictable innovation is one of the most harmful myths in product development. It leads to tons of frustration and subpar outcomes.

  Most companies are full of people with good ideas. More good ideas than resources to realise them. Hence the problem for most companies is how to prioritise and align the organisation so everyone pulling in the same direction.

  Impact mapping is a versatile tool that should be in every PM's pocket. You can apply impact mapping to better communicate, collaborate and eventually reach better results for your product and organisation.

  How could you simultaneously succeed and fail with your product? Unfortunately, this is easy and common. You can make a product that works for a few, but not for the many.

  Earlier I wrote a post about how your job title doesn't matter for doing good product work. However, your job title does matter in different contexts - influence and responsibility.

  This is a trivial reason for product failure, but also very common. You have finite resources to achieve product success. If you run out of them before you reach product success - you might not have a second chance.

  We already reviewed some of the most common reasons products fail - there is either no problem worth solving or, often and, when an organisation is not focused enough to solve the problem the right way.

  Products fail for many reasons . Often, products fail because we are trying to do too much. The ability to focus, and to decide what you are NOT going to do is vital to have a chance of success.

  I've read dozens of books on the topic of investing. Some of them were highly theoretical, others - full of practical advice, and most - recollections of "battle stories" of what once worked for a particular investor.

  Or so they think. And the main reason people think this way is the hindsight bias.

  This year has been quite interesting for PMs. Tech layoffs continued and the job market was, is, tough. Moreover, some prominent companies questioned whether PMs are needed at all. Is that the end for product managers and we all should look for another job?

  Product-market fit is not something you get once and maintain forever. You can lose it, regain it and lose again. As a PM, you need to have a good understanding of where you are with product-market fit and have signals set up to inform you of a possible change.

  Every aspiring product team wants to do discovery, but still, shamefully few do. Why? Often people don't know where to start. Here's a quick guide to starting product discovery practice in your org.

  One of the main responsibilities of a product manager is to make decisions. Some decisions will define their product success, but not all. What are different types of decisions and how should you approach them?

  Healthy competition is a good thing. It drives innovation and brings benefits to customers. However, at times a product team might get obsessed with their competitors which leads them astray.

  You don't see this bit of product management being covered extensively. We like to talk about building things, growing things and making things better. However, the word focus is a singular word and sometimes to make something great you need to let something else go. 

  We all know the concept of technical debt . Yes, those are all the things we avoid doing until something breaks. At least with a technical debt, we can blame developers but there is another kind of debt that's purely on us and that's product debt.