Solving complex problems with clarity and purpose.
More: faithpeterson.me ↗.
| If you want | then prioritize |
|---|---|
| Attention / Marketing | Front-end / UI polish and visual appeal – sizzle |
| Sales | Front-end functionality – what does it do |
| Retention | Admin UI and config/provisioning UI |
| Customer Satisfaction | High quality reliable scalable server |
| Long-term ROI | Ease and safety to maintain |
When I started working with a team that kept missing sprint commitments, my first action was to drop the traditional static 3-question daily standup. Instead, we began a daily practice of recalibrating our plan-to-completion relative to the sprint goal.
Flow metrics—cycle time and lead time—give teams immediate information and feedback they can use to improve their process. They show the effects of process experiments faster. And they encourage team behavior that leads to the results managers care about—deliver more, faster, and with production reliability.
The other day I asked “Do We Envy AI?” Does “AI” seem to possess some kinds of transcendence that we aspire to but can't or haven't reached? Today, the inverse: using LLMs and related technologies to create representations of ourselves that survive our deaths. Welcome Lucy AI, an art installation/exhibit that was explicitly created in response to Lucy Simic's stage 4 cancer diagnosis.
Of interest:
Stumbled over this feature. Why I like it:
* I can easily see what needs my attention right away.
* I can choose panel contents rather than let GMail choose for me.
* Example: in:unreads -category:promotions
For millennia, humans have invented dozens of ways to survive, as individuals, beyond the limits of our physical existence. Does generative AI appear to exist in a transcendent state we have only aspired to? On some level, do we resent that apparently privileged position? In short, do we envy AI?
Voxly was flying. The fitness facility management startup had signed three major chains in four months. Each new client meant rushing to configure their properties in Voxly's system—class schedules, instructor assignments, studio capacity limits, member restrictions. The admin interface was barebones, but who had time for field validation when Fitness Chain Y needed to go live before their board meeting?
“We'll build proper safeguards later,” became the team refrain. “Right now we need to get these partnerships announced.”
Six months later, same energy, different emotion.
We don't have to summit Everest. We can get rapid prototyping benefits without vibecoding. We've been prototyping all along. AI assistance expands what's possible without requiring us to master developer toolchains.
I've always used prototypes in my practice for all kinds of reasons: to communicate, explore ideas, elicit requirements, and more. My prototyping menu includes everything from manual, analog, and low- or no-tech right up through high-fidelity functioning and styled prototypes. Selecting and using appropriate methods fluently is central to how I work as a PM. (And now thanks to AI I can do this faster, better, easier, and more independently. I’m adding AI to my “menu.”)
Some of the reasons below deserve a little more discussion. For today, I’ll just offer this list. These are all things I need to as a PM. Prototyping of all kinds helps me do it.
But it doesn't always know the whole story. And sometimes it doesn't give up its secrets easily.