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Best of LinkedIn: Digital Products & Services CW 46/ 47 · Best of LinkedIn: Digital Transformation & Tech

• 0:00
  Speaker 0: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgeier and Frennis, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about digital products and services in calendar weeks, forty six and forty seven.
• 0:10
  Speaker 0: Frennis is a B to B market research company, helping enterprises gain the market, customer and competitive insights needed to drive customer centric and cost efficient product development.
• 0:21
  Speaker 0: Welcome back to the deep dive.
• 0:23
  Speaker 0: Today, we've done, well, a pretty serious information extraction mission for you.
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  Speaker 1: We certainly have.
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  Speaker 0: We've come through the most concentrated high-impact insights from top leaders in ICT and tech, all from LinkedIn over the last two weeks.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Our goal here is to give you a real shortcut.
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  Speaker 1: To distill all that noise into the essential knowledge, you need to know where the industry is moving.
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  Speaker 0: And we've spotted four massive shifts.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're looking at how AI is creating totally new roles and speed metrics.
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  Speaker 1: Then there's the real solidification of product operations.
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  Speaker 0: And a big evolution in product strategy moving way beyond just the feature roadmap.
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  Speaker 1: And finally, a really interesting one, regulatory pressures like the digital product passport that are now actually driving innovation.
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  Speaker 0: OK, so let's jump right into the big one because it really feels like it's defining everything else right now.
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  Speaker 0: AI, agentic systems, and what that means for engineering velocity.
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  Speaker 1: It's huge.
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  Speaker 1: We're past the point of asking if AI can help.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's about full standardized AI tool chains that are just fundamentally changing how fast teams can ship.
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  Speaker 0: It's the difference between using it as a little helper and integrating it as part of the actual pipeline.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Paul Alexander showcased a great example of this.
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  Speaker 1: He detailed a rapid, six-print framework where teams are combining tools.
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  Speaker 1: You know, UX pilot for prototyping, cloud for content, bolt for deployment.
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  Speaker 0: And it moves them beyond what he called, and I love this phrase, vibe-coded prototypes.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Straight into deployable, usable products.
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  Speaker 1: It standardizes the whole delivery process.
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  Speaker 0: But that kind of velocity... I mean, it implies a huge change in how a product manager actually structures their day-to-day work.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: The integration has to be structured.
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  Speaker 1: It can't be ad hoc.
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  Speaker 1: Alexei Biric really highlighted this need.
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  Speaker 0: What did he suggest?
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  Speaker 1: Well, he mentioned using repositories like Cursor for Product Managers.
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  Speaker 1: It's basically a toolkit that lets you chain AI-powered templates together for the entire lifecycle.
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  Speaker 0: So for everything from like, strategic alignment?
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  Speaker 1: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Using something like the Prism Framework.
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  Speaker 1: all the way to co-writing detailed PRDs and setting OKRs.
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  Speaker 1: It basically makes AI a formal team member, not just a brainstorming buddy.
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  Speaker 0: But, you know, speed is a double-edged sword.
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  Speaker 0: Melissa Perry raised a vital warning about this.
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  Speaker 0: The
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  Speaker 1: build trap.
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  Speaker 0: Yes, exactly.
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  Speaker 0: AI just accelerates the build trap.
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  Speaker 0: If your strategy is flawed to begin with, you're now just shipping the wrong features faster than ever.
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  Speaker 1: And that is the core dilemma, isn't it?
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  Speaker 1: Alexander really emphasized this.
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  Speaker 1: He said, the focus has to shift from building fast to building deep.
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  Speaker 1: Deep.
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  Speaker 0: What does that mean in practice?
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  Speaker 1: Well, Anyone can wrap an API around a large language model and ship something quickly.
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  Speaker 1: But a lasting, defensible AI product, that needs real depth.
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  Speaker 0: So deep model understanding.
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  Speaker 1: Complex orchestration, data governance, performance tuning, that's strategy, not just hacking.
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  Speaker 1: And
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  Speaker 0: that means we have to completely revisit how we test our assumptions.
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  Speaker 0: Because if a model drifts or compliance issue pocks up, the whole thing fails.
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  Speaker 1: And your traditional MVP It just doesn't capture those unique AI risks.
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  Speaker 1: Garima Junage is pushing this concept of the AIRT.
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  Speaker 0: The riskiest assumption test.
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  Speaker 0: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: You isolate the one assumption that, if it's wrong, kills the entire product.
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  Speaker 1: Is the model accurate enough?
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  Speaker 1: Is it compliant?
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  Speaker 1: You test that one critical piece first.
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  Speaker 0: This whole shift, it's now bleeding into organizational design.
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  Speaker 0: And this is where it gets really fascinating.
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  Speaker 0: Vivienne Wei pointed to the emergence of agentic AI as a managed capability, and with it, a brand new role, the agent manager.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a product manager, but for your AI teammates, you're defining the agent's vision, its roadmap, its success metrics.
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  Speaker 1: It's
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  Speaker 0: just like a human team member.
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  Speaker 0: So as Karamjit Singh notes, the AI PM is no longer just managing a model.
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 1: They're orchestrating a whole layer of intelligence.
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  Speaker 1: They're defining the roles for these digital teammates in these complex autonomous ecosystems.
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  Speaker 0: It's a huge change in accountability.
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  Speaker 1: And it demands a level of data literacy and systems thinking.
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  Speaker 1: that's just.
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  Speaker 1: It's way beyond the average product role today.
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  Speaker 1: A massive signal for where careers are heading.
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  Speaker 0: Okay, so we've unlocked this incredible speed and complexity with AI, but velocity without structure
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  Speaker 1: is just chaos.
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  Speaker 1: Right,
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  Speaker 0: which brings us to our next theme, the operational foundation that's becoming non-negotiable, product operations.
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  Speaker 1: Products, the function designed to absorb all that chaos.
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  Speaker 1: Iowana Giannicole describes it perfectly.
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  Speaker 1: She calls products the translator and the problem solver.
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  Speaker 0: So they're simplifying processes, stabilizing data flows between all the tools.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, and bridging the gaps between silos like engineering, BI, and customer support.
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  Speaker 0: They're the grease and the gears, making sure PMs can focus on discovery instead of, you know, fighting fires or wrangling data.
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  Speaker 0: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And Mark Abraham points to the future state of this, as AI starts removing the more routine tasks.
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  Speaker 0: Like basic data stabilization.
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  Speaker 0: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Pradovsk gets freed up to focus on higher value work, like designing global operational governance and system-wide efficiencies.
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  Speaker 1: It becomes a strategic function.
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  Speaker 0: That makes so much sense.
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  Speaker 0: But we have to bring in a crucial warning here from Stephen Greeney's.
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  Speaker 1: The expensive theater.
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  Speaker 0: Expensive theater, yes.
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  Speaker 0: He says just renaming business analysts or project managers as product managers doesn't create a product organization.
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  Speaker 1: He's hitting on a fundamental difference in where the role operates.
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  Speaker 1: BAs or traditional PMs, they're usually downstream.
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  Speaker 0: They document requirements for something that's already been decided on.
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  Speaker 0: Precisely.
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  Speaker 1: A true product manager has to operate upstream.
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  Speaker 1: They have to discover which problems are even worth solving in the first place.
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  Speaker 0: So how does a leadership team actually check for that?
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  Speaker 0: It's one thing to say change the mindset, but
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  Speaker 1: you have to look for the behavior.
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  Speaker 1: Grinees says you look for the mindset.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the analysts who won't stop asking why?
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  Speaker 1: who challenges everything.
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  Speaker 0: And you have to change how you measure them.
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  Speaker 1: That's the key.
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  Speaker 1: Measure them on customer insights gathered and outcomes achieved, not on task completion.
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  Speaker 1: If their bonus is tied to output, the system will never change.
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  Speaker 0: It's a powerful point.
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  Speaker 0: Okay, let's shift to our third theme, strategy, lifecycle, and analytics.
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  Speaker 0: Because once you get the structure right, the execution still has to evolve.
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  Speaker 1: For sure.
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  Speaker 0: Lore Giddings highlighted a critical mindset shift here.
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  Speaker 0: Teams have to stop treating launch as the finish line.
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  Speaker 1: It's the starting line.
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  Speaker 0: It's just the beginning of a continuous feedback loop, monitoring, observability, that's now central to every single release.
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  Speaker 0: And the
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  Speaker 1: strategy itself has to be just as continuous.
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  Speaker 1: I loved Kim Herbig's analogy for this.
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  Speaker 1: The
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  Speaker 0: coffee one.
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  Speaker 1: The filter coffee analogy, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The tool, the pour over device, that doesn't really matter.
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  Speaker 1: What matters is deliberately tuning the variables.
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  Speaker 0: The water temperature is your strategy.
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  Speaker 1: And the coffee to water ratio is your customer evidence.
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  Speaker 1: If you don't tune those inputs, the outputs can be weak no matter how shiny your tool is.
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  Speaker 0: That focus on inputs requires absolute clarity from the start.
• 7:16
  Speaker 0: FolaShadoGanaki reminded everyone about foundational frameworks like the five C's.
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  Speaker 0: Customer,
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  Speaker 1: company, competitors, collaborators, and context.
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  Speaker 0: Just to make sure everyone is starting from the same clear base.
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  Speaker 1: And that clarity has to translate into how you communicate.
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  Speaker 1: Stephanie Liu is really insistent that leaders must own the story behind the roadmap.
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  Speaker 0: The red thread.
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  Speaker 0: Yes,
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  Speaker 1: the red thread that connects the docs.
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  Speaker 1: If it's just a list of features, stakeholders lose trust because they don't see the vision.
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  Speaker 0: And the data supporting that story is increasingly about retention, not just revenue.
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  Speaker 0: Aiden Zaipur made this point very strongly.
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  Speaker 1: It's a huge sign of maturity.
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  Speaker 1: For sophisticated organizations, product analytics isn't just a dashboard anymore.
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  Speaker 1: It's a leadership system.
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  Speaker 0: A leadership system.
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  Speaker 0: How so?
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  Speaker 0: It
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  Speaker 1: guides priorities.
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  Speaker 1: It allocates resources.
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  Speaker 1: It enforces alignment because everyone is looking at the same outcome data.
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  Speaker 0: And we saw this almost contrarian case study from Ockoff Gupta about the company linear.
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  Speaker 1: A one point two five billion dollar valuation with only two product managers.
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  Speaker 0: It's incredible.
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  Speaker 0: And their method is so unconventional, they prioritize directness, no busy work and momentum.
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  Speaker 1: And they famously avoid a lot of traditional processes like heavy AB testing or tons of dashboards.
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  Speaker 0: It really proves that a highly focused model with strategic clarity can just drive.
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  Speaker 0: immense success.
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  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate validation that outcome matters more than output.
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  Speaker 0: Okay, let's shift gears completely.
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  Speaker 0: Theme four.
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  Speaker 0: Regulations, sustainability in Europe.
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  Speaker 0: This is an area where compliance is no longer just a cost center.
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  Speaker 1: No, it's becoming a commercial driver.
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  Speaker 1: A competitive advantage even.
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  Speaker 1: The
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  Speaker 0: EU's digital product passport, the DPP, is a perfect example.
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  Speaker 0: The Yogo Carnero de Silva gave a clear warning for industries like fashion and manufacturing
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  Speaker 1: that your tech packs must include this DPP info now.
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  Speaker 1: Things
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  Speaker 0: like end-of-life treatment, repairability, substances of concern.
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  Speaker 0: If you don't have it, your product could be obsolete the day it launches.
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  Speaker 1: The stakes are that high.
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  Speaker 1: But, as you said, the industry is reframing it.
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  Speaker 1: Kostas Dedaskalu sees the DPP as creating a universal digital twin layer for products.
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  Speaker 0: Strengthening traceability, transparency,
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  Speaker 1: and circularity.
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  Speaker 1: And you're seeing companies like IBM respond with solutions like product for DPP, which connects gen AI and data to turn that compliance into real commercial value.
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  Speaker 1: And
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  Speaker 0: the ambition isn't just European.
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  Speaker 0: Thomas L. Rodin confirmed there's international work happening in China and in ISO committees.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Moving toward a globally interoperable DPP framework.
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  Speaker 1: That would be huge for reducing complexity.
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  Speaker 1: But even
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  Speaker 0: with that push for alignment, regulatory divergence is still a major hurdle.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: Sweeter of a Chanderan detailed this for combination products like products that blend pharma and medical devices.
• 10:02
  Speaker 0: The FDA wants one integrated submission.
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  Speaker 1: Well, the EMA in Europe wants dual documentation plus a separate notified body opinion.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Your entire submission strategy has to be tailored from day one or you're just burning time and money.
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  Speaker 0: That complexity really underscores the need for skilled, resilient leaders, which brings us to our final theme, product leadership, careers, and learning.
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  Speaker 1: And let's start with a dose of reality from Dr.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Bartżaworski.
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  Speaker 0: Yes.
• 10:29
  Speaker 0: He really articulated the painful gap between the idealized PM job description and the day-to-day reality.
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  Speaker 1: Reality that often includes a lack of true independence.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you're executing someone else's vision.
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  Speaker 0: And excessive responsibilities, constant pressure to rush decisions without enough data.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 1: You're forced to focus on the next sprint instead of the long-term vision you're supposed to own.
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  Speaker 1: It's incredibly stressful.
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  Speaker 0: So if that's the chaotic reality, what makes an outstanding PM?
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  Speaker 0: David Pereira argued they lead by context, not by control.
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  Speaker 1: They're the ones challenging the status quo, focusing relentlessly on outcomes and sometimes asking for forgiveness instead of permission to drive value.
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  Speaker 0: And that takes resilience.
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  Speaker 0: Hassan Abdul Malak made a great point that a PM's real strength isn't just measured by successful launches.
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  Speaker 1: No, it's measured by how they navigate the messy parts, the shifting priorities, the uncertainty.
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  Speaker 1: Resilience is the final product they ship.
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  Speaker 0: And as the landscape changes so fast with AI, the very definition of leadership is changing too.
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  Speaker 0: Debbie Wajaja observed that managing a big org is no longer the flex it used to be.
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  Speaker 1: Not at all.
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  Speaker 1: Today's leaders are expected to create leverage, not layers.
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  Speaker 1: They have to stay close to the work, touch the tools themselves,
• 11:42
  Speaker 0: and maintain that sharp operational judgment.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: That hands-on curiosity is what keeps their strategic intuition relevant in a world where AI is rewriting the workflows every day.
• 11:53
  Speaker 0: It's a necessary humility.
• 11:55
  Speaker 0: It reminds me of that career advice from Lenny Rechitsky, that sometimes you have to take one step backward to take two steps forward.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you might need to step out of pure management to upgrade your intuition to make sure you're still an expert guide.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Continuous learning is everything.
• 12:09
  Speaker 0: So let's try and wrap this all up.
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  Speaker 0: OK,
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  Speaker 1: so synthesizing all this.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: The digital product world is accelerating like crazy, driven by AI.
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  Speaker 1: This demands that we build deeper and smarter, validated by new things like the AIRA.
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  Speaker 0: And product operations is no longer optional.
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  Speaker 0: It's the essential structure for that velocity.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And finally, external pressures like the DPP are becoming catalysts for real innovation.
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  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, success is shifting from just mastering a process and
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  Speaker 0: making the smartest possible strategic bets validated by data and supported by resilient hands-on leadership.
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  Speaker 0: That's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the core message.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this deep dive, new episodes drop every two weeks.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Also check out our other editions where we focus on ICT and tech, artificial intelligence, cloud, sustainability and green ICT, defense tech and health tech.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive into the insights defining the modern product landscape.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Make sure you subscribe to stay informed on these essential shifts.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: We'll talk to you next time.