Field Notes
Practical writing for product leaders and boutique advisors – on deciding what to build, answering the hard questions, and running a sharper practice.
Your Delivery Dashboard Might Be Measuring Nothing Anymore
AI didn't break your delivery metrics. It made most of them meaningless – and the one you think is still safe might not be either.
AI Cuts the Easy 80% of Coding in Half. The Hard 20% Barely Moves.
AI cuts routine coding by up to half but under 10% on hard problems. If your bottleneck is the hard 20%, more AI throughput won't move your ship date.
Product Managers 'Obsolete by 2030'? What the CPO Report Gets Right - and Dangerously Wrong.
A survey of 1,500 CPOs says the product manager is obsolete by 2030. The data underneath shows something narrower: the constraint moved, not the role.
AI Slows Developers Down at First. The Ones Who Push Through Come Out Faster.
The same developers who were 19% slower with AI in 2025 measured faster a year later. Judging AI at month one measures the dip, not the destination.
Your AI Agents Don't Have a Model Problem. They Have a Knowledge Problem.
Only 10% of enterprises get AI agents to production. The blocker isn't the model – it's the knowledge layer, and the trust that collapses without it.
AI ROI Is 2x a Culture Problem, Not a Tools Problem
Microsoft's 2026 data says culture and management explain 2x the AI impact of individual effort. More seats won't fix an ROI problem that's organizational.
AI Writes Code 30% Faster. Your Review Queue Just Got 4.6x Slower.
AI-generated pull requests wait 4.6x longer for review and pass far less often, so faster coding didn't speed up delivery. The bottleneck just moved.
Tech Was Never Stable. Find Your Place to Stand.
Tech workers call the industry "chaotic." It was never stable — and AI, oddly, makes the churn easier to stand in. Here's how to keep your footing.
The Cheapest Way to Wreck a Team Is a Bad Manager.
Managers are the single biggest driver of burnout — and the most neglected. Stafford Beer explains why, and why fixing it is the smartest business move.