Product Strategy & Leadership - The Thinking Lens

From Data-Informed to Knowledge-Driven

Data-driven is not enough. Data-informed restores judgment but keeps you in the present. Knowledge-driven turns decisions into reusable assets. A simple template and review loop help teams learn faster, cut rework, and scale better choices.

The ChatGPT Report and The Enterprise Blind Spot

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Data-Informed Decision-Making

The ChatGPT Report and The Enterprise Blind Spot

OpenAI’s ChatGPT usage report is consumer-only, so enterprise signal is skewed. Still clear: AI is a copilot. Writing dominates, most of it editing. Younger users drive volume; older pros drive work. B2B: prioritize decision support, co-creation, embedded copilots, governance.

The Foresight Gap: Why Your Last Success Is Building Your Next Crisis

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Organizational Design & Culture

The Foresight Gap: Why Your Last Success Is Building Your Next Crisis

Success hides fragility. Each growth stage plants the next crisis. The risk isn't debt but unseen debt across tech, culture, innovation, and governance. Make trade-offs visible, manage and pay them down, and build antifragile systems. Fast is fine. Blind is fatal. Track debt, hire for adaptability.

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 11: Turn AI into a Judgment Multiplier

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Data-Informed Decision-Making

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 11: Turn AI into a Judgment Multiplier

AI is not your strategist; it multiplies your judgment. Automate discovery, keep humans in the decision loop, and treat judgment as the API. Clean hypotheses and consequence paths in, clarity out. Use AI to amplify decisions, not outsource them. Automate discovery, own decisions. Judgment is moat.

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 8: Manage Multi-Product Portfolios Separately

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Data-Informed Decision-Making

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 8: Manage Multi-Product Portfolios Separately

Blended portfolio metrics become Franken-metrics: pretty roll-ups that mask product realities. Treat each product as its own system with distinct health and leading signals. Synthesize across products instead of averaging. AI clarifies only when signals stay separate. Or it polishes the camouflage.

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 4: Use Frameworks as Filters, not Blueprints

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Product Management Craft

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 4: Use Frameworks as Filters, not Blueprints

Frameworks focus attention but don’t decide. Used well, they clarify; used poorly, they paralyze. AI multiplies the noise with context-free models. Leadership must choose one lens per decision, declare boundaries, and decide. Tools assist. Judgment creates clarity. Choose focus over complexity now.

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 1: Avoid the Data Delusion

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Data-Informed Decision-Making

Beyond the Dashboard | Principle 1: Avoid the Data Delusion

In the Data Delusion, we focus on metrics while losing sight of what truly matters. We celebrate tiny, irrelevant wins, creating an illusion of progress. Data without human judgment is just noise – it's time to use it to sharpen our questions, not just track our speed.

Beyond the Dashboard | Intro: Why Your Beautiful Dashboards Might Be Making You Dumber

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Data-Informed Decision-Making

Beyond the Dashboard | Intro: Why Your Beautiful Dashboards Might Be Making You Dumber

We’re obsessed with data, but our dashboards often make us dumber. We track everything yet decide nothing. More data, less judgment. This isn't a tooling issue, it's a thinking one. This 11-principle series shares ideas on how to build judgment in an AI era that demands it.

When AI Turns Your Product System Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

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AI & The Future of Work

When AI Turns Your Product System Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

AI now shapes product strategy, not just predicts it. Left unquestioned, it becomes a prophecy engine: reinforcing biases, narrowing options, and derailing learning. Treat AI as input, test counterfactuals, review second-order effects, and keep humans in the reasoning loop. Question it. Validate it.

Harnessing the IKEA Effect for AI-First Products

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Product Strategy & Leadership

Harnessing the IKEA Effect for AI-First Products

We love what we build, even when imperfect. That’s the IKEA Effect: effort creates value. In SaaS, let users build: templates, safe drafts, sharing, audit trails, so they feel ownership. Co-create with AI as copilot or constructor. Earn loyalty with portability, not lock-in. Show ownership clearly.

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Product Strategy & Leadership

The Invisible Decline of Reasoning

Roadmaps update and backlogs move, yet when asked "Why are we building this?"—silence. That’s reasoning decay: motion without logic. Framing is shallow, strategy drifts, learning unused, priorities wobble, judgment fades, process over purpose. The backlog turns into noise.

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Product Strategy & Leadership

Where Did the Thinking Go?

Rituals are in place, delivery is steady, yet no one can answer why we're building. The logic layer has faded: discovery doesn't shape backlogs, strategy doesn't guide tradeoffs, output eclipses outcomes. Reconnect intent to action by making reasoning visible in every decision. Think with intention.

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Product Strategy & Leadership

The Hidden Cost of Framework Thinking

We live in a world of playbooks and quick frameworks. They help, but when they replace thinking, contribution dies. Stop blind execution. Ask: Is this valid for my context? Original thought is the value. Don't run someone else's logic. Slow down, think, and make it yours. Choose thinking over hacks.

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Product Management Craft

The Illusion of Progress

Shipping fast isn't progress. Clean backlogs and on-time releases can mask weak impact. When strategy is a slide deck, and success means 'shipped', teams sprint in circles. Progress is learning, behavior change, and clarity. Ask: what are we trying to learn, change, and prove? Then adjust. Not ship.