A short, hilly run near Avalon Beach. Hot, tough but absolutely beautiful.

Clarity Over Complexity

A strategy isn’t about looking smart. It’s about making sure everyone understands it.

Clarity beats complexity in any organisation. A strategy packed with jargon or overblown ideas creates confusion, not action. The goal is alignment - getting everyone moving in the same direction with confidence.

Simple, clear strategies win because they get executed.

You join a team meeting and just listen.

The team is in control - they cover the options, ask thoughtful questions and share feedback.
You watch them gelling, getting in the flow.
They are considering all the right angles: customer, business and tech.
The conversation moves naturally. They are calm and focused.

They don’t even need you there and it feels amazing!

I'm going to miss out on the Sydney Marathon in August as I didn't get an invite 😭. I'll have to find an alternative place to run a marathon. It's a pretty cool experience and wanted to do it again.

Anyway, I just came back from another run. I did the same routine as on Tuesday (6km easy run plus sprints) and somehow got PBs in 400m (1m 19s) and 100m (17.6s). I didn't expect that at all as my legs felt a bit heavy. But here we go. Making progress. Really enjoying the sprints at the moment.

The Tech Debt Spiral

Did another body scan, the first since July, just before Hyrox.
As expected, I gained a bit of fat during my trip to Japan. The percentage was probably higher right after the trip but I’ve likely dropped some in the last few weeks of training.

My goal is to get under 15%. It’s been almost a week without snacks or sugar. I stick to breakfast, lunch and dinner. The only thing I allow myself to eat in between is carrots 🥕

Customers Aren’t Always Right - Their Problems Are

Prioritising customer requests purely by volume is a flawed strategy.

Volume doesn't guarantee the best solution. And it doesn’t address whether this is the right problem to solve.

But it still blinds teams.

Yes, customer feedback is great for spotting patterns and surfacing needs. But raw demands don't point to the best answer. Building features based solely on who shouts loudest will result in bloated products or patchwork fixes that don't scale.

A client might demand Feature X but their request likely reflects a deeper pain point solvable in a more elegant, cheaper, faster and more beneficial way.

Strong product teams distil customer insights. Instead of asking: "What do customers want?" ask: "What problem are they trying to solve?".

Your customer problems are your problems.

I created another illustration. This time, it's the famous Vienn Diagram!

The journey to UTA50 has just begun! I’m gradually building mileage, adding sprints at the end of sessions and getting used to running on tired legs.

Tonight’s run was an easy 6km at a 6:25 pace, followed by sprints:
400m x 1
200m x 2
100m x 4

I’ll keep track of my progress as I work on improving my speed.

Clear Problems, Focused Teams

Engineers love clarity. The most important problem defines the mission.

A disjointed list of tickets signals confusion, while a vague objective offers no direction. Great work emerges when the goal is clear, focused and free of jargon.

When the problem is precise, teams know exactly where to aim.

Clarity in the Pause

It’s not working harder. It’s stepping back.

The answer isn’t hidden. It’s waiting for a moment of space, when the mind quietly connects what was already there. That’s the brilliance of stepping away.

When it clicks, everything changes.

One realisation I had was that I want to create and share a “manual of me.” Something to help others understand how I work and how best to collaborate with me. So, I went ahead and drafted the first version.

The other realisation was about how our product teams operate in the context of our market. We can move faster. We should move faster. And we will.

Big day!

Deciding If Your Team Needs a PM

Not every team needs a dedicated PM. Someone is already handling the PM work informally. It’s not complex.

Eventually, though, clear ownership becomes unavoidable. Is an individual contributor juggling alignment, communication and strategy alongside their core work? Or is it time to delegate those responsibilities to someone focused entirely on them?

The decision shapes how the team prioritises and executes.

I did some sprints over the weekend to remind my body what explosive power feels like. Started with a 2 km warm-up, followed by some stretches and then did 6 x 100m sprints with 90 seconds of recovery in between.

The first couple were at about 80% effort to get the muscles firing, then I pushed hard for the rest. My best time was 18.4 seconds, which works out to a 3:04 pace.

This is already faster than the sprints I did on January 2, where my best was at a 3:23 pace.

Of course, 18 seconds isn’t groundbreaking. Especially considering I used to run 100m in 12 seconds. But that was 20 years ago and I was 25 kg lighter!

Feeling excited to keep tracking my times. I’ll aim to do the same for 200m and 400m next.

Strategies evolve in action

Strategies evolve in action. You draw a map—rough and incomplete. You outline your destinations—the vision—and major obstacles—the business challenges. But many details remain unclear. It's foggy.

As teams move forward, challenges emerge, like hidden lakes on a foggy path. These pivots aren’t failures—that's what happens when you start moving towards the vision.

Each obstacle sharpens the strategy, revealing smarter routes and better decisions. Writing a strategy sets the course, but executing it unlocks clarity.

Teams that are comfortable with ambiguity and change, refining their plans as new insights appear, turn uncertainty into progress.

New Year, Who Dis?

Everyone talks about ‘hitting the ground running’ after the Christmas break.

Let’s be honest, no one feels like sprinting straight away at this time of the year.

Some are still catching up on sleep, recovering from all the desserts they've eaten, wrapping their heads around what day it is and trying not to fail one of their New Year's resolutions in the first week of the year.

Forcing yourself into work mode overnight is hard.

I’d rather ease into it. Spend the first day reconnecting with your team, archiving all the emails from last year and marking all Slack messages as read. Oh, that feels great.

By the second day, you’re already feeling more in control.

SkiErg all out, 500m in 1:46 😮‍💨 A good way to wrap up the day

Returning to the office with New Year energy, you spot two packages waiting on your desk.

A gourmet hamper and a bottle of fine wine spark instant excitement - this is your moment.

Then you see the label. The label says it all: not yours.

The year’s first reality check. Fresh challenges are ahead in 2025. Let’s go! 🚀

Afraid to look slow on a run? Remember, they don’t know if you’ve run 1km or 50km. You could be an ultra runner and they’re the ones not running.

Keep going. It's your pace, your progress,. your journey.

Side projects teach product management faster than any course.

Finding a problem, crafting a solution and marketing it sharpen critical skills. You learn to balance creativity with practicality and adapt to real-world feedback.

Hands-on experience builds stronger product managers.

Created another illustration. Experimented with colours today.

Started with a rough idea. Then sketched out each element and put them all together.

Update (Jan 3): Ah, forgot about fog! Need to add it.

Concept: