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Product leaders must rethink ownership, strategy, and differentiation in the age of AI
Why using the same AI models will not create differentiation and where true product advantage comes from.
How product teams can maintain ownership and strategy when stakeholders can prototype ideas themselves.
Practical advice for delivery-centric teams looking to evolve: Experiment with new ways of working and strengthen product discovery.
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And the first question that we got actually was, could you resonate about the product-centric versus delivery-centric organization using AI and the risk of losing your edge when everyone uses the same agents, Lovable etc. When everyone uses the same models trained on historical data? Yeah. And I think the question really ties deep into this talk, right? Because it is about when you're using the same models, you will have sort of like the foundational work. So the discussion is then what sets your product apart? Where is it that you create that delight that the users can feel? Because that won't come from those generic models. Because when everything's the same, nothing really stands out, right? And I think that ties into having that human intelligence, looking at it, ensuring that you're doing the right things, you're not missing out, that everything is squared off, and then not doing all that heavy lifting will create that mental freedom and mind space for you to really come up with those brilliant ideas that really does make a difference, right? Yeah. And I think, elaborate a little bit more on the difference between product-centric and delivery-centric teams. I think, I mean, a little bit of our talk has been to highlight the differences from the beginning that we see, and that we actually think that there is a risk, especially for delivery-centric organization now, to derail the product a bit. And if you let more of the stakeholders, make more decisions. Before, they have sort of been held back a little bit by scarcity. Now, when, again, we're doing development faster, well, that scarcity is not holding back anymore. So more and more ideas can be pushed through the product team. And I think that is where a lot of product leaders now need to sit in and think and consider what and how these new dynamics need to be shaped. Because I think that that is fundamental to where we're heading, like, in the industry, to consider these aspects. I think also a bit when it comes to then the aspect of building human judgment around the products, then we also need to trust the human judgment that we have built around the products. I feel that sometimes it's like that somebody else can know the issue better outside in the organization. And they feel that I know this issue by heart. So therefore, you need to build this. But there we need to start establishing trust between the product team who's building and the rest of the stakeholders. So I'm not entirely sure that this is the answer to the question because I felt there was a lot of things in here. But, I mean, we're pretty confident that, like, only leveraging these, like, Lovable and etc, it will not make your product to be distinguished. It will not make your product stand out. It is understanding your user, solving, trying to solve it in a unique way. Because then I think that is where you find more, like, find a place where you stand out a bit. We had another question here that maybe we can get into. So I'm at a software-as-a-service company that is quite delivery-centric. Could you resonate about how to handle both customer and sales staff using Lovable to express needs? I see a risk having to spend time on commenting sketches and overpromises of what is being built, what is being built out of the hands of the actual product team. Yeah. I think this is a very common thing to see, right? And I think often when we start new dialogues with new partners and asking them, hey, why did you reach out to us? What is it that we can help you with? One of the main comments and answers to this question is our product is just a patchwork of features. There's no coherent strategy. There's no coherent workflow through it. There are too many features. And the same feature exists several places. And you can access it from all kinds of directions. And it's very hard to navigate. And we're not getting the business value out of what we need. And when we then start diving into those discussions and like, why does this happen? And the answer is with nuances and in different sort of like phrasings, but it's always the same. Powerful stakeholders, opinionated, promised something, wanted something, and we just had to build it. We couldn't resist. We didn't have a mandate to resist. And here's the situation. So really having like the product team have that ownership of the roadmap, having the strong arguments why that is, and perhaps also having some sort of like product strategy that sort of like helps you fend off these incoming intruders. So like say, hey, this is the direction we're going. Can we all agree to this? Can you give us the mandate that we are agreeing to this? And then within this field, we will make the decisions and we will navigate because we have all of the context and we have all of the understanding that those external stakeholders are not necessarily have. And what I like with this question is actually like it highlights, I think, one of the issues that we will see more and more in the industry. I think because what is happening now with this model is that we're also a little bit, we boost sort of the stakeholders that they can actually feel that they are building the products and stuff like. They can actually shape things and do things themselves. And I think this is a question that many organizations are going to sit with and try to figure out. I really like what you say with having a good product strategy. I think if your product team does not have like a good product strategy, that is the first thing that you should focus on to actually have that sort of like, this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it. Because if you can have that, that's sort of like the argument that you can post to the people that you opt them with, with different prototypes, etc. I think then you will sort of have a better way to manage it. But yeah. I also feel like I think with access to these tools and they are great tools, we also have a risk of like seeing the same tendency that we see elsewhere, right? We see it with how to raise your child, COVID, public parking. All of a sudden, everyone's an expert on that domain, right? Yeah. And I think we see a bit of risk of this happening now. Yeah. All of a sudden, everybody's an expert on product development. And that is, I think, again, where the importance of leveraging human judgment and human intelligence. Because what we want to sit with, what we want to create is sort of the authority within the product team to actually say that like, now we've done these iterations. We've talked to the customers or like our users like this many times. These are the things that keeps popping up. These are the things that we keep hearing. So that is why we're building in this direction. So, again, like going back to actually use your insights from good product discovery work might also help to push back a little bit on a lot of these prototypes. I think a lot of like product teams will be exposed to that stakeholders kind of come in with and say like, why don't we just build this? And this is super easy. And, well, why don't we just do that? It's, again, bringing it back to the organization and understanding that the biggest question we're going to answer right now is should we build this? Because we risk derailing our product and we risk not providing our users with the best experience that we can give them. All right. I see time is ticking. Yes. Do we have one last final question that we can wrap up in a minute with the respect of people's time? Yeah. So, I mean, I think really short. We have a question about like, so if you are a delivery-centric organization, like, and like we know that we're like if they're part of it as a team, they know that they cannot change the entire organization. But like what are small steps that you can do? And one of the things that I tend to like when I come into different teams and coach them is to also focus on experimentation. We focus on experimentation in our products, but our way of working should also be something that we tend to focus on experimentation and try to make safe to do experiments. I think that is one of the most important that we can do for the future. So try to experiment with it and try to create new ways of working. But I think with that said, our time is up. And we want to thank everyone here for listening and we hope you have a great Thursday. So goodbye.