Topic: Product Strategy
Business Case for a New Product: The 3-Page PID Template That Forces ExCo Alignment
A business case for a new product is not a forecast — it's the alignment artefact that forces every ExCo member to commit, in writing, to their functional contribution to the product's success. This article covers the tight 3-page Project Initiation Document (PID) template that took Trayport to 62% CAGR, why PE-owned companies are better at this than anyone else, and why nothing should be allowed onto the roadmap until the PID is signed.
AI Made Building Your Product Free. Crossing the Chasm Is Still Exactly Where It Always Was.
AI has collapsed the cost of building your product to near zero. The chasm between early adopters and the early majority is exactly where it always was — and it's wider than ever. Here's what that means for your roadmap, your team allocation, and the grown-up conversation your board needs to have.
Assumption Mapping: David Bland's 2×2 for Deciding What to Test First
Assumption mapping is the workshop discipline that tells a product team which assumption to test first. David Bland and Alex Osterwalder's 2×2 — importance × evidence — surfaces the 'leap of faith' assumptions that belong at the top of the discovery queue. In 2026, when building is nearly free, assumption mapping is the single highest-leverage hour a product team spends each quarter.
Diffusion of Innovations: Rogers' 5 Adopter Categories and the Technology Adoption Lifecycle
Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations — the technology adoption lifecycle — describes the five adopter categories (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards) through which every new product passes. Here's what Rogers' framework actually means for your roadmap, your GTM motion, and why AI has made some adopter categories much harder to reach — and others much easier.
Early-Stage Product Validation: Seven Thinking Tools for 'Should This Idea Even Ship?'
Seven thinking tools for the stage before product-market fit — the stage where the honest answer to 'should this idea ship at all?' is usually no, or not yet, or not in this form. Problem-solution fit, riskiest assumption tests, assumption mapping, the Mom Test, MVP vs MLP vs MVA, Proof of Usefulness, and PMF measurement itself. Each framework answers a different question; sometimes the answer is 'stop validating and ship', sometimes it's 'stop building and listen'. This directory is for product leaders deciding which lens to pick up.
Gartner Hype Cycle: The 5 Phases and How to Use It for Roadmap Timing
The Gartner Hype Cycle plots emerging technologies through five phases — Innovation Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment, Plateau of Productivity. Here's how to use it as a roadmap tool rather than as conference wallpaper — when to bet on an emerging technology, when to wait, and why PE portfolio companies consistently get the timing wrong.
MVP vs MLP vs MVA: Minimum Viable, Lovable, or Awesome?
MVP, MLP, or MVA? Frank Robinson's Minimum Viable Product was designed to learn, not ship. Brian de Haaff's Minimum Lovable Product added an emotional bar. Minimum Viable Awesome (or Minimum Awesome Product) argues that in 2026 'minimum' is the wrong target entirely. When building is nearly free, the only defensible goal is magnificent in at least one dimension — your crown jewel.
Platform Business Models: Why Network Effects Are the Only Moat AI Cannot Erode
Platform business models — marketplaces, multi-sided platforms, ecosystems — don't sell products. They orchestrate exchanges between participants and capture a share of the value. In the AI era, where build cost has collapsed, network effects are the one remaining moat that AI cannot erode. Here's what that means for your roadmap, your PE valuation, and why platform plays dominate the next decade.
Problem-Solution Fit: The Stage Before PMF (And Why It Matters More Now)
Problem-solution fit is the stage before product-market fit — the one where you prove the problem is worth solving before you spend a penny on building a solution. In the AI era, when building is nearly free, problem-solution fit is the only discipline that stops teams from shipping ten wrong products in the time it used to take to ship one.
Product Life Cycle Stages: What Your Roadmap Should Look Like at Each Stage
The product life cycle has four stages — introduction, growth, maturity, decline — and every marketing textbook will tell you what they are. Almost none tell you what you actually need to know: how your roadmap, team shape, and resource allocation must change at each stage. Here's the operating-model view of the product life cycle.
Product Lifecycle Models: Nine Thinking Tools for Smarter Product Roadmap Decisions
Product lifecycle models are thinking tools. Each one helps you reason about where a specific product currently lives and what it genuinely needs next — which may not be more engineering investment at all, but a different go-to-market motion. This directory covers nine lifecycle frameworks, each designed to prompt a different diagnostic question.
Product-Market Fit: How to Measure It Honestly (Ellis, Vohra, Rachleff)
Product-market fit is the only milestone that matters for an early-stage product. AI has collapsed the cost of building, so measuring PMF — using Sean Ellis's 40% test, the Rahul Vohra Superhuman engine, and retention cohorts — now matters more, not less. Here's how to measure it honestly, diagnose fake PMF from a board seat, and allocate a minimum viable team to hunt it down.
Proof of Usefulness: A Weighted Scorecard for Early-Stage Ideas
Proof of Usefulness is a weighted scorecard from HackerNoon (April 2026) that rates early-stage products on real-world utility, traction, reach, technical stability, timing, and completeness. It's not a canonical framework yet — but the weight distribution is a genuinely useful lens for boards and founders asking whether an early-stage bet is real or theatre. Here's how to borrow what works without swallowing it whole.
Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT): Testing What Could Kill Your Product First
A Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT) is the smallest possible experiment that can prove or kill the assumption most likely to sink your early-stage product. Rik Higham coined the term in 2016 as a corrective to the abuse of MVP. In 2026, when building is nearly free, the RAT is arguably the only unit of early-stage work worth funding.
S-Curves in Product Strategy: When to Jump to the Next Curve
The S-curve describes how most product and technology performance improves — slow at first, then rapid acceleration, then flattening as limits are approached. Here's how to recognise when your current S-curve is flattening, how to time the jump to the next curve, and why most companies miss the moment entirely.
The Innovator's Dilemma in the AI Era: Why Your Best Customers Will Kill Your Next Product
Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma explains why successful companies lose to disruptors they should have beaten. AI has made the problem worse, not better — disruptors now have near-zero build cost and only need to solve distribution. Here's what that means for your roadmap and how to protect your own disruptive bets from your own best customers.
The Mom Test: Customer Interviews That Don't Lie to You
Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test (2013) is the canonical playbook for customer interviews that produce signal rather than polite lies. Talk about their life, not your idea. Ask about specific past behaviour, not hypothetical future intent. Extract commitment, not compliments. In 2026, when building is nearly free, Mom Test discipline is the single biggest separator of teams that find real products from teams that don't.
OKR Examples for Product Teams: 30+ Objectives and Key Results That Actually Work
Problems to Solve, Not Features to Build
30+ OKR examples for product teams—framed as business problems, not features. Includes bad-to-good rewrites, real-world examples from Google and Intel, examples tagged by Run/Grow/Transform, and how each Objective connects to squad allocation on your roadmap.
OKRs vs KPIs Explained: The Complete Guide for Product Teams
What You Watch vs What You Chase—And Why Most Teams Confuse the Two
KPIs are what you watch. OKRs are what you chase. KPIs tell finance what happened last quarter. OKRs tell product teams what to change next quarter. Here's the complete guide to the difference—with real examples, common mistakes, and how the two work together on your roadmap.
The Product Operating Model: A Practical Guide From Inside Cagan's Trainline Case Study
From Specs-Over-the-Wall to Empowered Teams — And the Tool We Built to Make It Work
The product operating model is how the best tech-powered companies work. I know because I was there — as CTO at Trainline, featured in Marty Cagan's Transformed. Here's what the product model actually looks like in practice, how we aligned 650 people around outcomes, and why I built RoadmapOne to make it repeatable.
The Culture of Adequacy: Your Customers Don't Want Minimum — They Want Magnificent
How Product Leaders Accidentally Train Teams to Be Mediocre
Many teams have been conditioned into adequacy: shipping the bare minimum of everything and the full potential of nothing. Here's the spectrum from Minimum Product to Maximally Awesome Product, and why your crown jewels deserve obsessive, beautiful, category-killing investment.
Crown Jewels: Why Your Most Important Feature Is Slowly Dying
Every product has two or three capabilities that disproportionately matter to customers. Over time, product teams lose sight of these crown jewels—until a competitor does them slightly better and the loss ratio spikes. Here's how to identify, protect, and relentlessly improve the features that define your product.
Ship It and Move On: The Recipe for a Mediocre Product
Great Features ALWAYS Need a Second Act
Your roadmap shows Feature X shipping in March, then the team immediately moves on. That's the recipe for a mediocre product—an agglomeration of half-baked MVPs where nothing makes customers go 'wow'. Here's why great products need a second act.