The Punk PM #8

Hey there, punk!

After last week’s lengthy teardown of John Boyd’s OODA Loop and it’s relevance for product managers in the age of AI, I thought I’d keep things brief today.

Publishing a weekly newsletter is a big commitment as a side gig, and I don’t want to burn myself out too quickly by trying to write several thousand words every Friday.

It’s also my little boy’s birthday this week, so I’ve been busy organising parties, buying cakes, and making sure he’s got a bunch of fun stuff to open.

Read on for some brief thoughts and links you might like.

Quote of the Week 🙊

Insight 🦉

My online friend Tommi Forsstrom published an interesting LinkedIn post earlier this week talking about “gear acquisition syndrome”, which is something every musician has experienced at some point in time (and is why I’ve got a bunch of guitars gathering dust in my loft and garage).

The really insightful thing, though, is how much we’re afflicted by the same condition as product managers.

Joan Westenberg has a fantastic article talking about why modern work sucks, and a lot if it is to do with rampant gear acquisition within our teams and companies.

Instead of spending time thinking deeply about the problems we’re solving for our customers and how we might find market fit for our products, we lose our days bouncing from Slack to Notion to Google Docs to Jira, moving the same bits of information around to the places people want to see it.

This pointless busywork is the epitome of what Marty Cagan calls product management theatre.

All these tools aren’t adding value to your process. They’re sucking up your time from what really matters—creating measurable impact for your customers and your organisation.

You don’t need more tools to help you build better products. You just need to figure out your ways of working, then find the most lightweight tool you can to help keep things on track.

Plenty of great products were launched before companies like Atlassian tried to convince us we needed their software as a crutch.

Action 🚀

What tools are you using that are sucking up your time each day? How could you get rid of them and free up some headspace for thinking?

Inspiration 💡

A Week In My Life as a Product Leader with AI by Peter Yang

Peter Yang shares his experiences as a product leader using AI in his work week, which is a pretty good example of what I’ve been saying over the past few weeks about how AI can complement the “human-ness” of good product management.

He demonstrates how AI helps streamline tasks like drafting product documents, improving strategies, and editing feedback, and talks about how you should treat AI as a supportive tool, refining its outputs to enhance productivity.

The Growth Maze vs The Idea Maze by Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen talks about how the rise of AI is changing how startups approach product development, shifting focus from just generating ideas to also mastering distribution strategies.

Modern founders and PMs must navigate both the "Idea Maze," which involves refining their product concepts, and the "Growth Maze," which focuses on reaching and scaling their target audience. Being successful in the age of AI will depend on solving both mazes effectively.

When Screens Remove Our Better Angels by Joan Westenberg

Joan Westenberg discusses the revelation that self-service kiosks at McDonald's cause people to make different choices then when ordering from a human, often opting for more food without social judgment.

This shift here is about removing important social cues that help us make better decisions, leading to impulsive behaviour. One of our challenges as product managers is to figure out how to balance convenience with the wisdom found in social interactions, because removing these constraints can encourage poor choices.

Signing Off ✍️

If this resonates with you, hit reply and let me know what pointless piece of software you’re going to get rid of this week. 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