open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
13.12.2025 20:05
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✍️✍️ Waves of change
Ever navigated a major org-level change where the experiences of it from different folks feel like night-or-day? Change moves through organizations in waves, but waves are individual in nature. I unpack this idea in my new essay linked here 👇
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
Research provides the framework for first principle thinking by breaking assumptions into testable premises, they push teams to reason from fundamentals"
A good researcher crystallizes for the team their learning goals, and what they need to learn/prove first and can separate differentiation, behavioral questions from optimization ones.
Excellent from @hpdailyrant.bsky.social 👇
"Research shouldn’t be just validation. Validating concepts is the bottom of the totem pole in discovery. A mixed method researcher matches the method to the question....
🚢 Shipped the ability to filter my essays based on 5 core capabilities of PM that matter the most IMO:
🗺️ strategy
🧠 judgement
🧭 leadership
🤝 collaboration
💪 craft
Also I decided to add deep-linking too, because... well, why not?
Give it a whirl ⬇️
waqas-sheikh.com/browse#craft
“Always” statements are almost always wrong. or incomplete. Or naïve. I encourage you to avoid absolutism in your thinking. See what I did there?
The strategy you can use to address those problems: cooperative cohesion.
The problems that happen when change is navigated through the org
How changes cascade through parts of an org…
How our energy shifts through any big change…
Are resources fungible? Only if you believe macroeconomic theory is a good strategy for you to make financial decisions for your family.
What may be true at large scale may not be true at small scale. For product teams, make resourcing decisions at the right scale.
This diagram will explain most of the challenges you face, in aiming for your product team(s) to be more “outcome-oriented”.
If you fail fast, then failure is guaranteed but success isn’t.
If you want to succeed, you need to adapt fast, more than just failing fast.
And if your aim is to adapt fast, then you need to learn fast.
But learning fast doesn’t need you to fail first.
So, learn fast.
✍️ New essay published: The OKR Olympiad
OKRs aren't one-size-fits-all, but we sometimes treat them that way. Your OKRs should reflect which game you're actually playing.
More in the essay here: open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
✍🏻 Peeking perils
How do you know when to pivot vs. when to stay the course? Whether it's strategy, team challenges, or your own career - the answer comes down to discipline around three things: clear hypothesis, predefined burden of proof, and giving time.
open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
✍️ New essay published: The OKR Olympiad
OKRs aren't one-size-fits-all, but we sometimes treat them that way. Your OKRs should reflect which game you're actually playing.
More in the essay here: open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
If you convince yourself that doing things the right way is either “too slow” or “too intensive” - then the solution to that is to find ways to do things the right way faster or more efficiently. Not to do things the wrong way.
By focusing on the speed & efficiency benefits of AI, we are conditioning ourselves to be lazy users & expect instant gratification. The best results from AI tend to come from context and thinking, not clock-speed. One-shot can feel magical, but the real magic is building leverage with your time.
Many PMs think alignment is binary—you either have it or you don't. But alignment is actually two-dimensional: it's about Affinity (do they believe in it?) and Commitment (will they act on it?)
✍️ New essay: Beyond binary: the four faces of alignment.
open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
Congrats! Quick tips:
- you have more time than you think
- zero in on where you can add unique value fast
- enjoy this phase, it’s rarified :)
Lots of #buildinpublic reflections
- Rebuilt the app ground-up on client/server arch
- Migrations are scary
- Replit Agent is better (still needs you driving)
- Hitting token/rate/credit limits is a badge of honor
- One more step to platform independence (thx @saeedwkhan.bsky.social for the nudge)
The inevitable has happened. I have become *scratch* built a ChatGPT wrapper 🚢
You can now use 🔍 semantic search to find essays tailored to your specific context or the situation that you’re working through.
Give it a whirl - all feedback welcome!
(Link in profile)
✍️ New essay published: Playing the headcount accordion
This essay is for product leaders who are trying to navigate the tension of organizations wanting to run leaner and faster, while so many incentives & constraints are pushing us to keep growing our teams.
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
I’m very sorry to hear this. My condolences, Ha.
The evolution of product teams - from tribes, to guilds. And what that means for us: constructing our personal talent stacks.
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/waqaswri...
Unlimited PTO is particularly challenging because both the P and the TO are dubious :)
