The Punk PM #46

Hey there, punk!

No newsletter for the last couple of weeks. Easter happened, and I chose hanging out with my wife and kids over publishing hot takes on product management and AI. No regrets.

But I'm back, and something's been nagging at me.

For years, I've held a firm belief about early-stage product thinking: rough is better. But I'm not sure that's the whole story anymore.

Let's get into it.

Quote of the Week 🙊

Insight 🦉

For years, I operated on a fixed assumption: low fidelity beats high fidelity in early-stage product thinking. Sketches over mockups. Quick and dirty over polished. The logic made sense: keep things loose, keep the conversation open, avoid locking onto a solution before you've properly explored the problem.

I've changed my mind. Partially, at least.

Here's the thing about rough sketches and wireframes: they work brilliantly if you're in a room full of people who can read them. Designers, experienced PMs, engineers who've built a hundred features. These people can look at a hand-drawn box with a squiggle in it and mentally render a fully-formed product concept. But most of your stakeholders aren't those people. And if they can't visualise the idea, they can't engage with it. They're nodding along, waiting for something real.

We've been experimenting with rapid prototyping directly inside our workshop process. Taking a loose concept and spinning it into something tangible using tools like Figma Make and Lovable right there in the session. The moment something becomes real—something you can see, tap, and move around—the energy shifts. People stop being polite observers and start being active contributors. They push ideas further. They spot problems. They get excited.

That's not solutioning too early. That's giving people a handle to grab onto.

It reminds me of the Amazon press release technique. Write the launch announcement before you build anything to force clarity on what you're actually making. AI prototypes might be the visual equivalent. A way to ask "what if?" and answer it with something you can point at, not just describe. There's something genuinely useful about being able to show what a strategic initiative could look like for your customers before a line of production code is written. Not as a commitment. As a conversation starter.

The old fidelity rule still holds. In the right room, with the right people, a rough sketch is exactly the right tool. Low fidelity hasn't become less useful. It's just not the only option anymore.

What AI prototyping adds is a new on-ramp. A way to bring more people into the conversation earlier, without waiting for the build to begin. For the stakeholders who need to see it to think about it, that's not a shortcut, it's just meeting them where they are.

The question was never really high fidelity versus low fidelity. It was always what gets the right people thinking clearly about the right problem? Sometimes that's a sketch on a whiteboard. Now, sometimes it's a working prototype you spun up before lunch.

Action 🚀

Next week, take an idea you'd normally explore with sketches or wireframes and build a rough prototype instead.

Then put it in front of someone who isn't a designer, engineer or a PM and watch how they engage with it.

Notice what changes.

Inspiration 💡

AI Brain Fry Is Real – Brittany Luse, Liam McBain and Neena Pathak put a name to something a lot of us are quietly experiencing. The tools designed to reduce cognitive load are adding a different kind of it. Worth knowing you're not imagining it. Read more

Broken Product Situations Keep Finding Me – Ruairi McGuinness on why some PMs are drawn to the hard, messy, unclear situations that others avoid. The skill isn't fixing things fast — it's understanding people well enough to create clarity before you act. Read more

AI Is Making You Dumber (And You Can't Tell) – Greg Isenberg makes an uncomfortable case that blind reliance on AI is quietly eroding your judgement. The antidote isn't using less AI. It's thinking harder before you use it. Read more

Signing Off ✍️

If this resonates with you, hit reply and let me know. And if you think a friend or colleague would enjoy The Punk PM, feel free to share it with them!

Play it your way,

Toby