I own the problem. The team owns the solution.
I go out to where the problem is, describe it, get the team on board and give them a deep understanding of the why — then let them work. Cagan and Torres are my school; these are the maps I actually navigate by.
Four questions
Every initiative carries four risks. Most teams stress-test the third and skip the first two. I flip that.
Will they buy it?
Value. Is there a real job to be done, and will someone pay to have it done?
Can they figure it out?
Usability. My training is in interaction design — this is where I start, not where I finish.
Can we build it?
Feasibility. Asked with the engineers early, not handed to them late.
Can the business carry it?
Viability. Pricing, retention, regulation — the things that decide whether a good product survives.
Principles
The ones I'd actually put on the wall.
The problem is upstream
Features are symptoms and friction is a signal. Walk up the causal chain until you find the real constraint — usually an incentive, a misunderstood job or missing context.
Opportunity before solution
Linger in the problem. Collapsing the opportunity and the solution into one move is the most expensive habit in product work.
Every feature is a bet
Say the hypothesis out loud before you ship, and know which signal will tell you that you were wrong.
Prioritisation is an argument
If you can't say why everything else can wait, you haven't decided yet — you've just made a list.
Who has shaped me
Not a reading list — the people whose ideas I use every week.
- Marty CaganInspired and Empowered. Empowered teams solving problems instead of shipping features, and the four risks.
- Teresa TorresContinuous Discovery Habits. Discovery as a weekly habit, the Opportunity Solution Tree and the product trio.
- Clayton Christensen and Bob MoestaJobs-to-be-Done and the forces of progress — why people switch, stay and pay.
- Alexander OsterwalderValue Proposition and Business Model Canvas — making the strategy explicit before building.
- Jake KnappSprint. Compress the decision and test with real users before anything gets built.
- Uri LevineFall in Love with the Problem — the entrepreneur's version of the core product instinct.
- Jiro OnoFrom outside product: mastery as making one thing a little better every day. Bread, a knot or a roadmap.
Toolbox
What I reach for, and what for.
Frameworks
- Opportunity Solution Tree
- Jobs-to-be-Done interviews
- OKRs
- Kano and RICE
- Value Proposition Canvas
- Story mapping and design sprints
- Pre-mortems and hypothesis framing
- Decision memos
Tools
- Amplitude, Hotjar and Google Analytics
- Figma and Miro
- Productboard, Jira, Linear and Notion
- Salesforce
- Claude and Cursor — I build prototypes and agents myself rather than describe them