Michaela Jillings

Stop asking for “2-3yrs product experience” for APM roles. APM roles help grads become product managers. Or give them a path to becoming one. But now I keep seeing “2-3yrs product experience needed”. Companies need to stop asking for this. And start calling the role the right title: Product Manager.

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I recently wrote about how Bruce Lee’s philosophy still applies to product management today. From adaptability to focus, simplicity to action, his approach feel surprisingly relevant in a world where roadmaps shift, users surprise us and teams try to do too much at once. https://lnkd.in/ekKbSZYk

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Career hack - know your product deeply. Understand how what you are building connects to the rest of the system, avoid building in silos, and know how changes in one area affect others. Make sure the pieces work well together, not just in isolation. Use your product every single day to stay grounded in reality. 🙏

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🎉 Just wrapped up an incredible 10-year anniversary celebration of "The Lean Product Playbook" with Dan Olsen! What started as a breakthrough talk "How to be a Lean Product Ninja" in 2012 became a foundational 335-page book that's now helped thousands of PMs worldwide. The core frameworks still resonate today: 🔺 Product-Market Fit Pyramid - You need all five components right: target customers, underserved needs, value proposition, feature set, and UX 📊 Importance vs Satisfaction Framework - Target that sweet spot of high importance, low satisfaction needs 🚀 Problem Space vs Solution Space - Most product failures happen when we jump to solutions without validating the problem But here's what got me excited: Dan's insights on AI's impact on product management. The "vibe coding revolution" with tools like Cursor, Bolt, and V0 is completely changing how PMs can prototype. We can now go from idea to testable prototype in hours, not weeks. Key takeaway: The core principles of lean product development remain solid, but our tools are evolving rapidly. PMs need to add new skills around AI evals and managing probabilistic outputs while keeping those fundamental customer validation practices. Shoutout to all the global participants who joined from Brooklyn to Berlin! The Lean Product Meetup community (13K+ members strong) continues to be an incredible resource. Speaking from experience - this is exactly the evolution I'm living as Product Manager GuestrixAI. Stay tuned for a deep dive on our journey next week. #ProductManagement #LeanStartup #AI #ProductStrategy #Innovation

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Last week at the Women in Product conference, I had the privilege of leading 1:1 coaching sessions with PMs and Execs on both career and practice. If you know me, you won’t be surprised that a few of these sessions turned into impromptu idea spitballing and problem-solving. Those were the best parts — real talk! One theme kept coming up: “I’m being told to use AI — build with it, automate with it, dive in with it — but how do I know what’s actually worth doing with AI?” One PM was wrestling with whether to automate user research synthesis. On the surface it felt perfect for AI, but the setup time and accuracy concerns made us pause — for her small team, manual analysis might actually be faster. Another leader was grappling with scattered AI experiments across her org — everyone was trying different tools, but without coordination. We talked through how to balance encouraging innovation while avoiding the chaos of duplicate efforts across Product, Ops, and Engineering. What stood out is how much context matters. At a scrappy startup, lightweight AI hacks can save time immediately. At a larger org, the overhead of approvals, integrations, and governance can make the same approach more effort than impact. So the challenge isn’t simply “use AI.” It’s building the judgment to know when and how to apply it. At the leadership level, it’s about creating a playbook so teams apply AI intentionally and consistently — and aligning cross-functionally so efforts don’t get duplicated. And none of this even touches monetary cost, time cost, security, privacy, or data — the factors that can quickly turn a promising idea into a non-starter, especially at scale. This is more writing than I usually do. Thoughts are brewing — reach out if you want to chat!

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🚀Hi all - I’m launching a newsletter (Reflections by TK) for builders and leaders in tech. I've spent over a decade operating at the intersection of product, engineering, and business. This newsletter is my attempt to slow down, reflect out loud, and synthesize my learnings on building, scaling, and leading in complex environments—with the hope it helps others in navigating their own path with more clarity and confidence. It is also an attempt to finally shape my writing dream. ✍️ The first post is about a tension many of us wrestle with: How do you scale good judgment without replacing it with undue process? In large organizations, we rely on frameworks and processes to scale good judgment and reduce risk of poor decision-making. But somewhere along the way, it’s easy to forget that these are just tools, not truths. We start optimizing for metrics instead of solving real problems, and following checklists instead of thinking from first principles. The best leaders know when to follow the lines, and when to redraw them. In this piece, I share: 🔹 Why process is necessary 🔹 How it starts to break 🔹 When to override it 🔹 How to build a culture of first principles thinking 📖 Would love for you to give it a read and let me know what resonates. How have you balanced the need for process with critical thinking in your teams? #productleadership #techstrategy #firstprinciples #decisionmaking #leadership #reflectionsbytk

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Product People, the Boardroom Needs You! Last week I got to speak to Lily Smith and Randy Silver (again!) for Mind the Product Product Experience podcast to talk about the article I recently posted "From the Backroom to the Boardroom: Why Product Leaders Belong at the Table" https://lnkd.in/gPZuv9XA The episode will air at the end of the month—but I wanted to share some reflections before then. Most product leaders think boardrooms are for ex-CEOs or CFOs. But here's the truth: your experience solving messy problems, testing ideas, and learning fast is exactly what modern boards need. I was well-established in my product career when I joined my first not-for-profit committee at St Kilda PCYC—a police citizen and youth club for kids at risk that also ran a public gym. A staff member there asked several business people, myself included, to help them save the club. They had three weeks of payroll left before shutting their doors. I was looking at this busy club and wondering: why are they losing money? That's when I experienced firsthand why strong governance matters. Without proper systems—like a point of sale and locked cash drawer—people had been taking money and driving the club into the ground. We got together and formed a plan that included implementing systems, but we also hired a highly competent managing director. Working with them and the new systems, we turned the whole trajectory of the club around into a profitable, sustainable organisation. It could stay true to its mission of providing a safe haven for kids at risk. With careful management it went from nearly closing its doors to being able to expand by buying the property next door. And it's still going strong. This was a pivotal experience that taught me: → The value of understanding the financials. Not just the lingo—really understand what the numbers tell you. → Practice governance. Join a not-for-profit in your local community or something you have a personal connection with-but don't assume there's less risk. Directors are still liable for things like insolvency in not-for-profits too.  → Draw on your network. Board opportunities come from people who've seen you in action. Would you refer someone if you had no idea how they think, work, or respond to pressure? So look to the people who know you well and are already on boards. Boards need your skills. You just need to start the journey. #BoardReady #ProductLeadership #Governance #ProductToBoardroom

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How confident are you in your roadmap this year? Are you playing it safe, or taking real swings at opportunities that could change your product’s trajectory? Today's insight on The PM Brief, featuring John Cutler, hits this tension perfectly. He reminds us that prioritization isn’t just about how confident we feel right now. It’s about how quickly we can learn, reduce risk, and collapse uncertainty early. This is just one of many strong insights in John’s article. All 10 prioritization traps are worth a read if you’re rethinking how you plan and prioritize heading into 2026. #ProductManagement #AI #Prioritization

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If you’re applying for a PM job in this day and age, the following are all anti signals: - Strategic product leader - “Innovation” expert - Cross functional gtm expert - Literally any mention of Agile Or Scrum Please just start with what you actually shipped and what the impact was.

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