The Product Experience

In this episode of The Product Experience, Mariah (Executive Director of Product at The Atlantic) discusses the often-vague transition from being a great Product Manager to becoming an effective manager of people. Drawing on her background as a journalist, Mariah explores how empathy and storytelling translate into product leadership. She deep-dives into using the Reforge PM Competency Model to remove subjectivity from performance reviews, fostering growth through "Development Conversations," and integrating AI into the PM workflow without losing the human touch.Chapters[0:00] The Pitfalls of People Management[1:15] Mariah’s Origin Story: From Journalism to Product[3:24] Product Goals at The Atlantic[4:14] Transferable Skills from Journalism[6:08] The Evolution of the News Product Industry[8:40] Why Product Leaders Struggle with Management[13:12] The Reforge Competency Framework[15:13] Running 6-Week Development Conversations[21:20] Linking Development to Pay and Promotions[22:58] Managing the Human Element of Performance[26:12] Addressing Burnout and Imposter Syndrome[28:58] Upskilling Teams in the Era of AI[31:40] AI Disruption in the News Industry[33:01] Closing and ResourcesKey Takeaways— Journalism as a Product Foundation: Skills like active listening, asking the "question behind the question," and storytelling are directly transferable to discovery and stakeholder management.— The "Liking" Trap: Effective management isn't about being liked; it is about challenging your team. Radical transparency often leads to more long-term gratitude than avoiding uncomfortable conversations.— Structured Development: Using a competency framework turns vague performance evaluations into objective, actionable growth plans.— The 6-Week Pulse: Dedicated "Development Conversations" every six weeks help track progress and adjust goals in real-time, far beyond the utility of an annual review.— Protecting Focus: "Focus Fridays" (no-meeting days) are essential for PMs to escape the "weeds" and execute high-value work.Our HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

Product managers are saving hours with AI, yet feel more uncertain than ever about whether their products will succeed. What’s going on?In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver sit down with Axel Sooriah, product management evangelist at Atlassian, to unpack the findings from a large-scale survey into the state of product management today.Axel shares why so many teams are stuck on the hamster wheel of execution, how cross-functional collaboration still breaks down in practice, and why 84% of product managers doubt their products will succeed despite loving the craft. The conversation explores the real reasons behind PM anxiety, the role of leadership in creating confidence, and how reframing work around customer progress can re-energise teams.Chapters00:00 – Money, motivation, and product work01:12 – Axel Sooriah’s product background02:16 – What a product management evangelist does05:38 – Why Atlassian ran the state of product management survey07:01 – AI productivity and the strategy time paradox11:32 – The hamster wheel of execution14:01 – Leadership, incentives, and product manager agency16:16 – Using AI in customer discovery18:17 – Cross-functional collaboration in practice22:06 – Why 84% of product managers doubt success26:16 – Discovery, evidence, and decision-making confidence28:47 – Fear and curiosity in the age of AI30:50 – Getting started with AI as a product manager32:54 – Profit focus and product team motivationOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

In this episode of the Product Experience Podcast, we speak with Kasia Chmielinski, co-founder of The Data Nutrition Project, who discusses their work on responsible AI, data quality, and the Data Nutrition Project. Kasia highlights the importance of balancing innovation with ethical considerations in product management, the challenges of working within large organizations like the UN, and the need for transparency in data usage. Featured Links: Follow Kasia on LinkedIn | The Data Nutrition Project | 'What we learned at Pendomonium and #mtpcon 2024 Raleigh: Day 2' feature by Louron PrattOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

What does it take to build truly product-driven engineering teams? In this episode, Matt Watson — founder and CEO of Full Scale and author of Product Driven — joins Lily and Randy to challenge the longstanding silos between product and engineering. Drawing on 25+ years of experience and four tech ventures, Matt makes the case for why developers need more than just code to care about: they need context, ownership, and clarity.From redefining “done” to the evolving role of AI in software teams, this conversation dives into how product leaders can foster a culture where engineers aren't just implementers, but co-creators of customer value.Chapters0:00 – Why “no feedback” is a warning sign, not success1:46 – Matt’s journey: from developer to founder2:58 – Thinking outside the code: how the book Product Driven started4:50 – Why many engineers don’t think about the customer5:57 – The rise of product managers and the walling off of engineers6:56 – Redefining the role of PMs in cross-functional teams9:01 – Metrics, measurement, and the illusion of progress10:57 – Ownership as the root of productivity13:04 – Code monkeys, culture, and killing creativity14:55 – Communicating context: five minutes that save weeks17:04 – AI and the changing definition of developer productivity20:32 – External value vs internal tech debt22:48 – The Product Driven model: Vision, Focus, Clarity, Shared Ownership, Courage27:08 – Why courage is the starting point for changeOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

In this episode, Prerna Singh, CPTO at Avaaz, walks us through how AI is reshaping the way we prototype, learn and build digital products. Rather than replacing teams or skipping straight to production, she argues that AI shines when used as a “thought partner” to accelerate early‑stage experimentation. Through her own journey building a community platform on weekends, she demonstrates how tools like ChatGPT, Lovable (and later Claude / Replet) and Figma AI enabled her to move from blank page to clickable prototype in hours — while retaining the human insight, iteration and context that underpin good product work. The conversation reframes common assumptions about “fast‑AI = bypass human work,” and instead proposes a balanced adoption path: start in “sandbox mode,” learn and play — before graduating to “architect mode” where the real value to business begins.Chapters00:00 – Introduction & AI’s impact on product cycles01:43 – Meet Prerna Singh: her background in product and community building03:50 – The community problem: logistics over connection05:11 – Turning to AI to solve her own problem06:50 – What AI can’t do: user insight and human judgment08:08 – From waterfall to short-cycle prototyping10:54 – Using ChatGPT as a Socratic thought partner13:07 – Working solo vs team: where AI fits17:17 – From prompt to prototype: using Lovable19:06 – Iterating with Figma AI and other tools23:00 – Real feedback from real users25:02 – Creating a feedback knowledge base with AI26:16 – AI vs design sprints: same principles, new toolsOur HostsLily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.