The ProductTrio Field Notes

Build products on evidence, not a hunch.

Most teams brainstorm, build, and pray. These are the discovery habits, research moves, and strategy calls that separate teams who ship value from teams who just ship.

Product Trio visual - Product Manager, Designer, and Engineer working togetherProduct Teams

What is a Product Trio - and why our company is named after it

PM + Designer + Engineer working together, not in sequence. Most teams run a relay race - spec to design to build, handing off at every step. The trio eliminates the handoffs, covers all four product risks, and builds things worth building.

Product Teams · 8 min read
Product Discovery

We ran the whole 3W Loop in one morning with 28 people

A 150-minute masterclass at WaysConf 2026, run on the participants' own metrics rather than a tidy case study. The five exercises, why the case study stops halfway, why you star the explanation you don't believe, and the one thing no workshop can produce for you.

Product Discovery · 7 min read
Product Roles

Are you a Product Builder or a Product Architect?

Product management has no agreed job description, so seniority gets decided by vibes. Ravi Mehta's 12 competencies across four areas are the closest thing to a real definition, and they split most PMs into two recognisable shapes. How to read your own chart, what to fix first, and why the team version matters more than the individual one.

Product Roles · 7 min read
Strategy

Delight, hard to copy, margin-enhancing

Discovery without a strategy is a scavenger hunt with no list - you search all day and never know when you're done. Gibson Biddle's DHM model gives you three questions to test a bet against, and a bet has to clear all three. Why most strategies only answer the first one.

Strategy · 6 min read
Product Discovery

What is the 3W Loop? Where, Why, Whether

Three questions, asked in order, each with its own instrument: product analytics for where it hurts, story-based interviews for why it happens, a scoped experiment for whether the fix works. The four rules, what each step leaves behind, and one loop run end to end on a real onboarding problem.

Product Discovery · 7 min read
Product Discovery

You have the data and the interviews. You asked them in the wrong order.

A dashboard, a research repo with sixty interviews, and four features nobody uses. Why without Where, Where without Why, Whether without either - the three shapes this takes, why capable teams do it anyway, and four checks that tell you which question is actually open.

Product Discovery · 6 min read
Experimentation

Interview first, or go straight to the test?

The argument every product team has, settled with three checks: is the fix cheap and reversible, does everyone name the same mechanism, would you run the test anyway. Worked both ways on two real products, plus the two ways getting it wrong costs you.

Experimentation · 7 min read
Experimentation

A test you cannot fail is a demo

Write down the result that would stop you shipping, before the test runs. If you cannot, it is a demo with a control group. The five tells, the four-line test card, and the real reason teams leave the last line blank.

Experimentation · 6 min read
Product Discovery

Stop building MVPs. Build a prototype that answers one question.

Two of the three words in "Minimum Viable Product" point the wrong way. Product tells you to build a product, viable tells you to grow the scope until it stands up. Here is what to build instead, how to pick it from the assumption rather than the roadmap, and the point where you genuinely should build the real thing.

Product Discovery · 6 min read
Experimentation

Big problems rarely need big solutions

The two most valuable changes I shipped last year were a button and a default toggle. Both took days, and both beat the three-month project next to them on the roadmap. How to find the small version of your biggest problem, and how to tell when the rebuild really is the answer.

Experimentation · 6 min read
Product Teams

Stuck in the messy middle of a product transformation

You have OKRs. You have something called a trio. Leadership talks about outcomes and still asks for features by name and date. The four tells, the three moves that make it worse, and why one visible team beats an org-wide push.

Product Teams · 6 min read
Product Leadership

Founders, your first product hire keeps failing because you won't let go

The hire was fine. The handover never happened. The three tensions that start on day one, what letting go actually means, and the one-question test for whether you have a product team or a founder with assistants.

Product Leadership · 6 min read
User Research

Interview your churned users, not just the ones who stayed

They already decided, so they have no reason to be polite. Why the dropdown kills the honesty, the open question that got Groove 8x more answers, and the three questions to ask about the day they cancelled.

User Research · 6 min read
Metrics

Data-informed beats data-driven

Data-driven means the number makes the decision. Data-informed means the data points and you decide. Bezos's 70% rule, why the difference is accountability, and the question that replaces "are we sure?"

Metrics · 6 min read
Product-Market Fit

You have a PMF score. That is the easy part.

The Sean Ellis survey returns one number and three segments, and almost everyone reads the number and throws away the segments. How Superhuman went from 22% to 58%, what our own 49% at UX Pilot changed, and why you politely ignore the users who would not miss you.

Product-Market Fit · 7 min read
Experimentation

Stop overthinking the idea. Design the experiment.

Three weeks of debate produces no information that day one did not already have. Six steps that turn an argument into a test, the step every team skips, and how to pick a method that could actually change your mind.

Experimentation · 6 min read
Product Leadership

"That looks good in theory, but won't work in practice"

The most common objection to changing how a product organisation works is not an argument, it is an exit from the conversation. What it protects, and the one-team bet that tests it cheaply.

Product Leadership · 6 min read
Metrics

What good retention actually looks like for B2B products

Around 60% of users still active at six months is good for SMB and mid-market SaaS, 80% is great. The benchmarks, why user and revenue retention disagree, and what to do when yours is under the line.

Metrics · 6 min read
Product Discovery

How strong is your evidence? Score the idea before you argue about it

Most product arguments are really arguments about evidence strength, and nobody names it. The Confidence Meter puts the disagreement back where it belongs.

Product Discovery · 6 min read
Product Teams

The three things every product team needs direct access to

Customers, product data, and business stakeholders. Miss one and the team can look busy without ever being right on purpose.

Product Teams · 6 min read
Product Leadership

When stakeholders start asking for features again, show your work

Reverting to old habits is a trust problem, not a process failure. Defending your autonomy loses it. Showing the reasoning wins it back.

Product Leadership · 6 min read
Product Leadership

How to hire a fractional Head of Product

The brief is the hire. What to write in it, how to vet for stage instead of logos, and what to agree before you sign.

Product Leadership · 7 min read
Product Roles

What does a Product Manager actually do?

The backlog, the roadmap, the spec, the standup. All tools. None of them the job.

Product Roles · 7 min read
Product Discovery

How to balance discovery and delivery

There is no fixed ratio. Split on the risk in front of you, not on the calendar.

Product Discovery · 6 min read
Product Discovery

Building got 10x cheaper. Building the right thing didn't.

AI collapsed the cost of shipping and left the cost of being wrong exactly where it was.

Product Discovery · 6 min read
Product Roles

AI made everyone think they can do everyone else's job

PMs design, designers ship, engineers own product. Tasks moved. Accountability didn't.

Product Roles · 6 min read
Product Teams

The best PMs make PRDs invisible

The spec was never the point. Alignment was, and the document stopped being the best way to get it.

Product Teams · 6 min read
User Research

"We don't have time for customer interviews"

Nine interviews, five hours of calls, and a change that would never have won a prioritisation meeting.

User Research · 6 min read
Strategy

Stop copying your competitors' roadmap

Competitor ships, you panic, you build, users ignore it. What competitor research is actually for.

Strategy · 6 min read
Product-Market Fit

Problem-Solution Fit in 5 steps

Beachhead, research, value proposition, assumption tests, MVP. The sequence to run before you write code.

Product-Market Fit · 7 min read
Product-Market Fit

Iterate on WHO, not what

Your product might be fine. Your audience might be wrong. The pivot most founders never consider.

Product-Market Fit · 5 min read
Experimentation

The fake door test

Find out if anyone wants the feature before you spend a sprint building it.

Experimentation · 5 min read
Product Teams

10 product management lies we all tell

"Users asked for this." Three users, two years ago, one was the CEO's cousin.

Product Teams · 6 min read
Product Discovery

The Product Death Cycle: why "what do you want?" kills your product

You launch a feature, nobody uses it, you ask what's missing, you build that too. David Bland's Product Death Cycle, and the 3-step way out.

Product Discovery · 6 min read
Product Roles

Product Managers, you are not the mini-CEO of Product

It sounds like a compliment. Believing it is what gets PMs into trouble. What a PM actually has authority over.

Product Roles · 5 min read
Startups

Don't hire a Big Tech PM for your 0-to-1 startup

Scaling from 1 to 10 and building from 0 to 1 are different jobs wearing the same job title. What to hire for instead.

Startups · 6 min read
Resource

The startup tool stack I actually recommend

25 tools, tested across 4 products and dozens of startups I've coached. What each one costs, and whether you actually need it yet.

Resource · Reference guide
Product Leadership

What a fractional Head of Product actually does (and when you need one)

Senior product leadership without the six-figure hire. What "fractional" means, how it differs from a consultant, and when it's the right call.

Product Leadership · 6 min read
Product Roles

“Product Owner” isn't a job. It's a Scrum role - and the difference is costing you.

Half of all "Product Owner" ads are really asking for a backlog administrator. The difference between grooming tickets and managing product risk.

Product Roles · 7 min read
Outcomes

Product outcomes vs. business outcomes: why a revenue target backfires

"Increase revenue" is the wrong goal for a product team - they can't move it directly. Give them the user behaviour that drives it instead.

Outcomes · 6 min read
Experimentation

Build a culture of experimentation in 4 steps (start absurdly small)

Everyone says "experiment more." Almost nobody makes it stick. The path from one scrappy test to a company that de-risks decisions by default.

Experimentation · 6 min read
Product Teams

Delivery team, feature team, or product team? Only one ships value.

Cagan says there are three kinds of "product" team - and two of them aren't. How to tell which you are, and how to move right.

Product Teams · 7 min read
Metrics

Metrics for 0 → 1 products: what to measure before you have numbers

Metrics do matter at 0 → 1 - but they play three very different roles. Confuse them and you'll optimise the wrong thing with false confidence.

Metrics · 6 min read
Product Discovery

Your best idea has a 1-in-3 chance of working. Here's how the best teams find the other two.

Brainstorm, build, ship, repeat - and still miss. The Opportunity Solution Tree turns "let's build this and see" into a system that connects every feature back to a customer problem and a measurable outcome.

Product Discovery · 8 min read
User Research

Talk to five customers this week - before you build anything else

The cheapest way to de-risk a roadmap costs you one hour and zero engineers. Why most teams skip it, and the interview habit that fixes it.

User Research · 7 min read
Outcomes

Not all features add value - but every feature adds cost

If your team measures success by how much you ship, you're running a feature factory. Here's how to swap output for outcomes without losing momentum.

Outcomes vs. Output · 6 min read
Product-Market Fit

Product-market fit isn't a vibe. It's a hypothesis you can test.

Founders throw "PMF" around like everyone agrees what it means. They don't. Here's a definition you can actually act on - and how to know you're close.

Product-Market Fit · 7 min read
Career

How I went from Operations Manager to Head of Product (and how you can too)

I failed a startup, pivoted into ops, and talked my way into a product role nobody handed me. The four paths in, and the one that actually worked for me.

PM Career · 8 min read
Strategy

If everything is a priority, nothing is

A product strategy isn't a longer roadmap. It's a short list of bets - and a much longer list of the things you've chosen not to do. How to write one that says no.

Product Strategy · 7 min read
Product Discovery

Discover what to build before you code it

80% of features in the average software product are rarely or never used. Here's why - and how Product Discovery changes those odds.

Product Discovery · 7 min read

Reading about discovery is easy. Doing it with your team is where it gets real.

Book a free intro call. We'll look at one product decision you're stuck on and map the fastest way to get evidence before you commit.

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