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AI Adoption: More Than a Checkbox

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means to adopt AI at the team level. It reminds me of something I’ve lived through before: the early days of Agile transformation. I remember when we first "went Agile." We swapped out Gantt charts for sticky notes, added standups to the calendar, renamed our planning meetings—and called it a day. It looked Agile. But it wasn’t. It took months of unlearning, coaching, retrospectives, and iteration before we saw real behavior change—and real outcomes. And I’m seeing the same thing with AI now. A leadership team announces, “We’re investing in AI,” but at the team level, it’s unclear what that actually means. How does it show up in our planning? Our rituals? Our outcomes? What Meaningful AI Adoption Actually Looks Like From what I’ve seen, meaningful AI adoption doesn’t start with a shiny tool or a prompt engineer. It starts with visible improvements in how teams work. Are decisions being made faster? Is output improving? Ar...

Unlocking GPT-4.1’s Full Potential: A PM’s Guide to Smarter Prompting

  If you’ve ever stared at a blank prompt and thought, “I know GPT can do more, but I’m not sure how to ask for it” —you’re not alone. As product managers, we’re always hunting for ways to bring AI into our roadmaps in ways that are both powerful and pragmatic. The new GPT-4.1 Prompting Guide from OpenAI is a goldmine for that. It’s full of tactics to make GPT agents smarter, more persistent, and easier to work with—especially if you’re building agentic workflows or tool-integrated systems. But even if you’re not building autonomous agents, there’s a ton here to help any PM get better results from AI, faster. Below, I’ll distill the key takeaways, offer a few critiques from a product lens, and share practical next steps for PMs who are early in their AI adoption journey. What’s in the Guide: Key Takeaways 1. GPT-4.1 Is Ultra-Steerable Unlike older models that “guessed” intent, GPT-4.1 thrives on explicit instructions. It rewards clarity. One well-placed sentence mid-prompt can cou...

The Mom Test: What Every Product Manager Needs to Rethink About User Interviews

Curiosity is one of the most underrated skills in product management. It’s what keeps us learning, evolving, and digging deeper into what our users actually need—rather than what they say they want. That’s why I try to keep a steady rhythm of reading, especially books that challenge how I think and work. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick recently made its way to the top of my list—and I’m glad it did. It’s a short, punchy read (think 1–2 evenings) but packed with insights that changed how I approach early-stage user conversations. What struck me most is that the book clearly explains ideas I had to learn the hard way through trial and error . If I’d read this earlier in my career, I would’ve saved so much time—and probably had better conversations from day one. If you’re building something new, validating a problem space, or just want to stop getting false positives from polite people—read this book. Key Takeaways from The Mom Test 🧠 Talk About Their Life, Not Your Idea Rather than pit...

TRANSITIONING FROM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TO PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Understand What Product Management Really Is Think of PMs as the backstage rockstars of product development. Their gig? Figuring out what to build, why to build it, and making sure the whole band—engineering, design, marketing—is playing the same tune. Unlike development, where success is often about clean, elegant code, PM success is measured in happy users, business impact, and team alignment. If you're looking for structure and solid thinking around the role, I highly recommend Roman Pichler’s blog. His writing was a lighthouse for me early on—and honestly, it still is. His posts on product vision, roadmapping, and prioritization are practical, clear, and battle-tested. Use Your Techie Brain (But Don’t Get Stuck There) Coming from engineering gives you an incredible edge. You know what’s feasible, where the dragons are in the codebase, and how to speak dev. That technical fluency helps you earn credibility and make smart trade-offs. But a gentle warning: don't get so caug...