Newsletter

The new shape of product work - #16

Product work is evolving from coordination to creation. The leaders who stay relevant will be the ones who blend strategy, systems thinking, and AI fluency into how they work every day.

Ross Chapman

07 Nov 2025 — 6 min read

Photo by Milad Fakurian / Unsplash

Hi everyone,

I don't know about you, but I think AI is reshaping how we build and redefining what it means to work in product. Teams that once spent their days aligning and enabling are moving closer to the actual work.

Designers are redesigning their workflows around AI
Strategists are learning to think in systems, not sequences
..even executive education is catching up, training a new generation of AI-first product leaders.

Sure there's new tools, but this is signally a shift in mindset.

The next era of product work belongs to those who can think cyclically, build practically, and translate AI capability into human impact. And that's what I've tried to capture in this week's issue:

Inside this issue

🧠 The shift from enabling to doing - Thomas Christensen on rediscovering hands-on product work
🌀 Don’t design the doorbell first - Ed Roberts on fighting linear thinking in product design
🎨 Designing in an age of tool overload - Megs Armour on crafting sustainable AI-powered workflows
🎓 Building the next generation of AI-first product leaders - IIM Kozhikode’s new executive programme for product and strategy leaders

Appreciate your interest this week,

thanks, Ross

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Legacy models are cracking everywhere , from agency economics to product architecture. The teams who win next aren’t the ones moving faster, but the ones stripping away everything that slows them down

The post-agile product era

Most teams still run Agile ceremonies while shipping slows to a crawl. But the products moving fastest today are built by tiny, post-agile teams who skip the process theatre and go straight to evidence.

Replatforming without ruining product quality

Lift and Shift: When It’s the right move, and when it’s a trap.

Where product is really heading: loops, vibe coding and outcome-first work # 18

This week’s issue explores the rise of vibe coding in major tech, why UX still struggles to influence business, how PM and project roles keep getting mixed and why teams deliver only 3% of their plans.