randy silver

You're just not hipster enough!

I'm waiting for artisinal apps and sites. 100% hand coded.

How to stop micromanaging PMs and teams — Mariah Craddick (The Atlantic) The world's leading product community

Using objective tools like the Reforge PM Competency Model and holding dedicated "Development Conversations" every six weeks removes subjectivity from performance reviews and provides actionable growth plans.

From @randysilver.outofowls.com:

www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-avoid...

MUST OPINION HARDER!

What to do when there’s no Strategy in place YouTube video by Future of Work Scotland Meetup

NICE. Been talking about this a lot lately - about the difference between having an Ambition and an actual Strategy.
youtu.be/W9Eh3wIEA6k

And on what good leadership looks like:
outofowls.com/blog/the-sec...

I see these patterns again and again.

DORA is an interesting place to start, too.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art not as hot

Tamerlane was looking for someone to teach his donkey to talk. Nobody wanted the job. Finally the wise men of the dunes - Hodja Nasreddin took the position and promised to teach the donkey to talk in 10 years time. - Are you crazy? his friends asked him. - Not really, Hodja answered, the money is good the job is not hard and in 10 years a lot might happen: I might die, or Tamerlane might die or surely enough this old donkey might die.

A 14th century parable about agentic AI transformation

How to connect product features to company goals - Elena Luneva (Maven, Nextdoor, Braintrust) The world's leading product community

How to connect product features to company goals w/ @randysilver.outofowls.com www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-conne...

Check it out!

4 Practical takeaways you’ll get at From Magic Pixie Dust to Strategic Decisions: Prioritising AI Requests

Why the word AI Breaks Your Prioritisation: How the hype around artificial intelligence escalates subjective bias and derails strategic decision-making... And what you can do about it. The Cynefin Advantage: A proven framework, adapted for discussing the challenges and opportunities around AI, helping you distinguish between processes that need simple automation and those requiring human judgment.

​ Your Tech Stack Decision Tree: From RPA to LLM, from ML to Agentic — which approaches work for specific situations, with real examples. ​Making Better Decisions, Faster: How to have collaborative conversations across teams that turn "Magic Pixie Dust" requests into prioritised, well-scoped product opportunities.

From Magic Pixie Dust to Strategic Decisions: Prioritising AI Requests - Randy Silver Jan 28 Wednesday 28 January 17:00 - 18:00 GMT https://luma.com/ybdbtxi2

Can’t we JUST do this with AI?

Prioritisation has always been hard - but the biggest challenge now is using the right terms to discuss AI requests. The possibilities are exciting, but it’s not magic fairy dust.

@edbiden.bsky.social @hustlebadger.bsky.social

Sign up here: luma.com/ybdbtxi2?tk=...

Thanks, @adrianhoward.com ! That's lovely company to be in.

Patrick NDJIENTCHEU, Damilola Adelekan, Matthew Certner, Elena Luneva, Jason Philip Sparks, Vidya Dinamani, Nina Olding, John Cutler, Teresa Huang, Prerna Singh, Matt Watson, Axel Sooriah

See y'all next year!

Deep Breath....
Roni Ben Aharon, Matt LeMay, Charlotte King, Joaquim Torres (Joca), Todd Green, Ezinne Udezue & Oji Udezue, Jen Swanson, Moshe Mikanovsky, Faith Forster, Brigitte West, Erica Wass, Sally Foote,...

And massive thanks to all of our other guests, who were also great:
Keji Adedeji, Laka Sriram, Glenn Block, MBA 🍉 (he/him), Evie Brockwell, Aakash Gupta, Karen Beck Stroup, Radhika Dutt, Shannon Scott, Yorai Gabriel, Adam Warburton, Zan Gilani, Trisha Price, Vincent Jong, Jo Wickremasinghe,...

What obsessing over team alignment taught me - Sahil Jain www.mindtheproduct.com/what-obsessi...

Retention strategies for single-use products – Vivek Kumar (Investor and Advisor, Atlys) www.mindtheproduct.com/retention-st...

A masterclass on rapid experimentation - Dan Dalton, Director of Product (Sage, Pendo) www.mindtheproduct.com/a-masterclas...

How is product leadership changing? - Christian Idiodi (SVPG) www.mindtheproduct.com/how-is-produ...

How to influence at board level – Kirsten Mann (CEO, Founder, Vizory, Prospection, Oracle) www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-influ...

Why RACI doesn’t work (and what you should use instead) — Jenny Wanger (Product Ops Consultant) www.mindtheproduct.com/why-raci-doe...

Why we need to design products for machines – @katjaforbes.bsky.social (Executive Director, Standard Chartered Bank) www.mindtheproduct.com/why-we-need-...

What made Intercom throw away its product playbook – Paul Adams (CPO, Intercom) www.mindtheproduct.com/what-made-in...

Here are some of my other faves:
Why should we care about building accessible products? – S. Dee Miller, Ph.D. (Director, Product Strategy & Insights, Adobe) www.mindtheproduct.com/why-should-w...

How Stack Overflow is competing with AI - Jody Bailey (CPTO, Stack Overflow) AI has changed the way developers work—and Stack Overflow is right at the centre of that shift. In this episode, Jody Bailey, CPTO at Stack Overflow, shares how the platform is adapting to AI, protecting its community, and embracing new revenue streams. We explore how LLMs are reshaping developer behaviour, why canonical answers still matter, and what it takes to keep trust, quality and community alive in the age of instant AI-generated code. If you’re working on dev tools, building with AI, or just wondering how to keep your product relevant through disruption, this one’s for you. Key takeaways AI is both a disruptor and an enabler Engagement is shifting, not disappearing Community remains the core asset AI doesn't kill quality—it challenges it Prompt engineering is the new entry-level skill Innovation is iterative—even with AI Stack is designing for tomorrow’s engineers Jody’s vision is long term Chapters 00:00 – intro to Jody Bailey and his role at Stack Overflow 03:30 – impact of AI and shift in how developers search for answers 07:45 – Stack’s new business model: licensing data to LLMs 10:15 – protecting community-contributed data and enforcing attribution 13:20 – changing nature of search and the role of AI 17:00 – trust, verification, and the evolving user experience 21:10 – internal AI experiments and lessons learned 25:00 – balancing community, learning, and AI-powered answers 28:20 – new skills required for developers in an AI world 31:40 – evolving engineering roles and the future of team structures 36:10 – making Stack Overflow accessible for the next generation 39:50 – what Jody’s most excited about for the future

Our 3 most listened to episodes of the year were:
How Stack Overflow is competing with AI with Jody Bailey
🎧 bit.ly/3MDQ8wW
Why product managers are getting fired with David Wascha
🎧 bit.ly/3MFSLhN
Tried and tested AI tools for product managers with Dave Killeen
🎧 bit.ly/4qi4eml

BUT...

@lilylimpet.bsky.social is the co-hostest with the mostest, and @lukeofulysses.bsky.social is our master editor. Mani Dastgerdi does our amazing animations, and the whole Mind the Product Team makes everything work!

We just wrapped up all of our recording slots for The Product Experience this year, and we've ha da LOT of great chats. So it's time for reflection and shoutouts.

How to lead product transformation at scale – Jo Wickremasinghe (CPTO, BPP) The world's leading product community

How to lead product transformation at scale w/ @randysilver.outofowls.com www.mindtheproduct.com/leading-prod...

angry face on a poster

When BAD OKRs happen to good people

Most of the time, problems come from the OKRs being either:
😡Too Big
😱Focused on a specific Activity, emphasizing effort rather than results and impact
😠Or they’re Disconnected from overall strategy

Yup, that's an excuse for BAD.

outofowls.com/blog/when-ba...

You've reached your thinking limit

Tell me about it.

WORKSHOP: Help! AI is passing me by. How you can survive and thrive without being an AI expert. // Give execs a framework/playbook to make sure that they can work with modern product/tech teams, using their key skills
sxswlondon.awardsplatform.com/entry/vote/b...

PANEL: Built to Survive: What it takes to win - Advice from Today's leading CPOs // Lily & I are pulling together a kick-ass panel of CPOs to give advice on what it takes to create a great company today
sxswlondon.awardsplatform.com/entry/vote/b...

I applied to talk at SXSW London 2026, Vote for our submission

Public voting for @sxsw.com 2026 is open, and I've got two submissions - would love a vote:

(and c'mon, SXSW London, get a Bsky handle!)