Product for Product Management

When AI can summarize meetings, draft updates, and even recommend priorities, what remains uniquely human about stakeholder alignment? In this episode, product coach and advisor Joy Adamson joins Matt and Moshe to explore why alignment is still one of the most essential, and most human, parts of a product manager’s work.

As part of our First Principles for PMs in the Age of AI series, Joy shares why stakeholder alignment is much more than keeping people informed or collecting feature requests. It is the ongoing work of connecting organizational needs with real customer and user needs, creating shared understanding of priorities, navigating competing incentives, and building enough trust to make difficult tradeoffs together.

Join Matt and Moshe as they explore with Joy:What stakeholder alignment really means, and why true alignment reduces the need for constant stakeholder management
Why the word “stakeholder” itself can create friction when people assume their request should automatically become a roadmap item
How PMs can set healthy boundaries, say no with clarity, and prevent feature requests from becoming unchallenged commitments
Why emotional intelligence, negotiation, trust, and informal relationship-building remain critical product skills
The difference between simply considering stakeholder input and actually aligning on priorities, tradeoffs, and resource allocation
How hidden motivations, incentives, politics, and organizational culture shape product decisions in ways AI cannot fully understand
Where AI can help: meeting summaries, follow-ups, tailored stakeholder communications, preparation, and negotiation support
Why AI-generated recommendations still need human oversight, accountability, and judgment, especially when trust, risk, or ambiguity are involved
Could AI agents eventually become stakeholders themselves? What that might mean for product teams and decision-making
Why junior PMs should deliberately build their human relationship and influence skills as AI takes on more operational tasks
And much more!
Want to connect with Joy?Website: https://www.digitaljoy.nl/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamsonj/
You can also connect with us and find more episodes:Product for Product Podcast: http://linkedin.com/company/product-for-product-podcast
Matt Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgreenproduct/
Moshe Mikanovsky: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikanovsky
Note: Any views mentioned in the podcast are the sole views of our hosts and guests, and do not represent the products mentioned in any way.

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We’re back with a familiar voice on the podcast: John Fontenot returns to continue our *First Principles for PMs in the Age of AI* series, this time focused on Vision and Strategy. In a conversation that blends product thinking, personal reflection, and a healthy dose of AI skepticism, John helps us explore what it really means for PMs to define where they’re going, and how to get there.

John defines vision as the desired end state or future outcome, and strategy as the path, phases, and tradeoffs required to reach it. With examples ranging from long-term business goals to the realities of regulated industries, he explains why product managers still need to lead on vision and strategy even when leadership doesn’t provide a clear direction, and why AI can support this work, but not fully own it.

Join Matt and Moshe as they explore with John:
What vision and strategy actually mean in product management, and why they’re easy to confuse  - How to connect a big vision to practical milestones, obstacles, and key results  
Why AI can help with analysis and brainstorming, but can’t replace human creativity, empathy, or rule-breaking thinking  - The limits of AI in regulated spaces like finance and healthcare, where context and compliance matter  
Why PMs often have to create strategy when the organization doesn’t hand it to them  - How to use AI as a thinking partner without outsourcing your strategic judgment  
The balance between staying anchored in the long-term vision and adjusting to the realities of the market, user needs, and constraints  
John’s perspective on where product teams should be careful not to let AI flatten nuance or over-automate strategy  
And much more

Want to connect with John?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrfontenot/  

You can also connect with us and find more episodes:
Product for Product Podcast: http://linkedin.com/company/product-for-product-podcast
Matt Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgreenproduct/  
Moshe Mikanovsky: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikanovsky

Note: Any views mentioned in the podcast are the sole views of our hosts and guests, and do not represent the products mentioned in any way.

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We’re continuing our new series on "First Principles for PMs in the Age of AI" with a conversation about two things AI can support, but not replace: human judgment and empathy. In this episode, Rebecca Douglas joins Matt and Moshe to unpack why these skills matter even more as product teams lean harder on AI tools.

With 14+ years in product and a career that started in customer service and client relationships, Rebecca brings a grounded view of what product managers actually do when the stakes are real: prioritize tradeoffs, interpret messy context, build trust with stakeholders, and make decisions that AI can help inform but not own. Together, they explore where AI saves time, where it creates new risks, and why PMs still need to slow down, validate, and think deeply before shipping.

Join Matt and Moshe as they explore with Rebecca:
What human judgment really means in product work, and why it matters most in prioritization, tradeoffs, and strategic decisions  
 What empathy looks like in practice for PMs, especially when serving both users and non-users like legal, operations, and compliance teams
Why AI can help with synthesis, documentation, and repetitive work, but still needs human oversight and validation
How regulated environments raise the bar for judgment, trust, and accuracy
The risk of “empathy debt” when teams move too fast with AI and skip genuine user understanding
How Rebecca uses AI in her own work to save time on research, competitive intelligence, and requirements, while keeping decision-making human
Why product managers shouldn’t let AI become the answer to every problem just because it’s available
How to balance AI fluency with restraint, especially when accuracy thresholds matter
Why Rebecca’s poll choice of Human judgment and Empathy resonated so strongly with product leaders  
And much more!
Want to connect with Rebecca?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccardouglas
Workforce Intelligence Labs: https://www.workintellabs.com/  
You can also connect with us and find more episodes:
Product for Product Podcast: http://linkedin.com/company/product-for-product-podcast
Matt Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgreenproduct
Moshe Mikanovsky: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikanovsky

Note: Any views mentioned in the podcast are the sole views of our hosts and guests, and do not represent the products mentioned in any way.

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We’re kicking off a new series with a very timely question: what does product management look like in the age of AI? In this first episode, Matt and Moshe set the stage for *First Principles and Beyond for Product Managers in the Age of AI*, exploring how PM work is changing, what should stay human, and where AI can genuinely help.

The conversation ranges from Matt’s work implementing software for government agencies to Moshe’s hands-on experiments with AI coding tools like Cursor, Kirk, and Claude Code. Along the way, they dig into the tension between speed and judgment, debate what “product sense” really means, and start shaping the core theme of the series: identifying the first principles of product management before layering AI on top.

Join Matt and Moshe as they explore:

- How product management is evolving as AI becomes part of the workflow
- Why human-centered value delivery still matters, even when tools can generate work faster
- What “product sense” means in practice, and whether it can be defined as a set of first principles  
- Experiments with AI coding tools, local development, and the possibilities of building faster with more leverage
- The idea of using AI to augment product work without removing human judgment from the loop
- Bring it to the audience by polling where PMs should remain involved, and where AI can take more of the load
- And much more!
Want to share your thoughts on the series or follow along?- 

- Product for Product Podcast: http://linkedin.com/company/pr...
- Matt Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma...
- Moshe Mikanovsky: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mik...
Note: Any views mentioned in the podcast are the sole views of our hosts and guests, and do not represent the products mentioned in any way.

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Platform work doesn’t look like a typical “one product, one user journey” world, and in this episode, we dig into what that really means with platform Product Leader Ashana Singhania. With a decade of experience across financial services at American Express and Goldman Sachs, Ashana has worked on both consumer-facing experiences and the complex platform layers that power them.
She walks Matt and Moshe through how platform products differ from traditional products: instead of a single user flow, platforms support multiple product lines, regions, risk profiles, and entry points, all sitting on shared infrastructure like identity, decisioning, and risk data. That reality changes everything about how a PM does strategy, prioritization, communication, and stakeholder management.

Join Matt and Moshe as they explore with Ashana:What “platform” really means in practice, and how horizontal capabilities underpin vertical consumer products
How platform PMs think differently about impact when results show up indirectly through many dependent products
Why tools like Productboard, and Jira need to be used differently for messy, non‑linear platform work
Techniques for breaking down use cases, mapping the full scope, and prioritizing across multiple product lines and geographies
The critical role of documentation, especially around variations, so teams don’t assume behavior is the same everywhere
Governance and failure modes:Over‑standardization that harms UX
Too much flexibility that creates chaos
How to design a strong core plus controlled adaptation

Partnering early with compliance, risk, ops, and legal in financial services so platform changes don’t get blocked late
How AI is (and isn’t) used today in financial platforms, from fraud detection and behavior insights to reducing manual work, and where trust and regulation slow things down
Ashana’s approach to defining a platform vision, living roadmaps, and reserving capacity for platform evolution
A sneak peek at her new venture on income‑based affordability assessment in real estate and beyond
And much more!
Want to connect with Ashana?LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashanasinghania 
You can also connect with us and find more episodes:Product for Product Podcast: http://linkedin.com/company/product-for-product-podcast
Matt Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgreenproduct/
Moshe Mikanovsky: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikanovsky
Note: Any views mentioned in the podcast are the sole views of our hosts and guests, and do not represent the products mentioned in any way.

Please leave us a review and feedback ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️