1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
đ ď¸ My 2024 Annual Review
My 2024 Annual ReviewâDear Reader,â What I focused on in the second half of 2024After wrapping up the first half of 2024, the rest of the year was full of highlights. Stepping on stage at Product at Heart. Besides the book, this talk was probably the most ambitious body of work I ever shared publicly. I loved connecting with the audience in Hamburg and was overwhelmed by the positive feedback I received on the ideas I shared in my talk and how I managed to bring them across. Thank you to Arne and Petra for this opportunity - and you should get your 2025 tickets so you do not miss the killer lineup they're curating. If you missed the talk, you can relive it here and access my slides. Shipping two more chapters of my upcoming book to beta readers. This marks a major milestone for publishing my book Real Progress: How to Connect the Dots of Product Strategy, OKRs, and Product Discovery. Having received feedback on drafts of all major chapters, I will dive into editing in January and then move to a more specific and confident timeline for publishing in 2025. For a sneak peek at the current drafts for the cover, check out this post by my designer, Giulia. Getting reminded why Conferences are about Connections, not Content at Digitale Leute. I've been a part of the Digitale Leute Conference in Cologne since its inception in 2018 and enjoyed this year as if it were my first one, from joining the local Product Tank to giving a brand-new talk to being able to teach a room full of ambitious practitioners. You can read more about my takeaways here and check out the slides from my talk here. Wrapping up a long-term client engagement and starting two new ones. I continue to be amazed by the joy working with product teams tackling complex products all over Europe gives me. After working with a client for 1,5 years, I was excited to bring the results of our collaboration to a close and embark on new training and coaching journeys. You can learn more about my impact on clients and their real-life stories on this overview page. On a personal note, the definitive highlights of this second half of the year were a trip to the Olympic Games in Paris, a surprise camping trip, a family trip to NYC, celebrating my 35th birthday with a lush picnic in the park, embarking on a joint health and nutrition transformation journey with my wife, and celebrating my dad's 60th birthday by the Baltic Sea. What I will focus on in 2025Publishing my Book. While I didn't achieve my goal of "Bringing my book into a theoretically pre-orderable state," I am more confident than ever in its impact on (the right) readers. 2025 will be about finishing and planning an effective but calm way of launching the book. I will share more details through a dedicated landing page in Q1 and start to discuss appearances on podcasts or conferences to talk about the core ideas in the book in Q2/Q3/Q4 around the same time. Hands-on Client Work. I am excited about diving into the complex challenges of new and returning clients in 2025, whether through internal training, workshops, coaching, or keynotes. In-person Connections. Besides my public January workshop series in Berlin, I look forward to more in-person moments. Whether through teaching and speaking at conferences (like Mind the Product), local meetups, or simply spontaneous co-working + coffee days in cities like Berlin. Stop finishing "2-Star Coffees." Some of you know I'm a massive (filter) coffee nerd who loves to put the art of brewing and the quality of a cup way before quantity. Recently, I got a filter from a local cafĂŠ before a client workshop I did not enjoy. I shared with the group that this would be a max. 2-star coffee (in my personal Airtable coffee log), which led one participant to say: "It's interesting that you still finished it. You probably wouldn't finish a 2-star book." So, in 2025, I will stop finishing 2-star Coffees (and other life activities, where this metaphor fits so beautifully). Thank you for Practicing Product, and happy holidays to you and your loved ones. I can't wait to see you on the other side. âTimâ PS: When you edit a chapter and realize you've aged while writing your book. Join my In-Person Workshops in BerlinI'm excited to return my beloved in-person workshops to Berlin in January 2025. You can choose between 1-day workshops on Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery OR get the full 3-day experience for you or your team.
(reach out for custom team quotes) As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the real progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I focus on better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery. |
Product Practice Newsletter
1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
Product Practice #353 How Duolingo Approaches Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Mar 7, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 24 sec Dear Reader, Many Product Managers were in awe of the ways of working shared in The Duolingo Handbook a few weeks ago. While itâs an inspiring read, I used this as a reason to revisit some of my all-time favorite reads about how this company operates (or at least used to operate) and extract my takeaways with you. Duolingo focuses on âMovableâ Metrics...
Product Practice #352 My Digitale Leute Summit 2024 Keynote Recording and Slides READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Feb 28, 2025 READING TIME 1 min & 40 sec Dear Reader, I'm excited to share the full recording of my talk on How Product Teams Can Connect the Dots of Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery from last year's Digitale Leute Summit. You can think of it as the naturally progressing chapter (hint hint) that would follow my talk from Product at Heart 2024. As always, I won't require you, as an...
Product Practice #351 The Post-it trap: Why Strategy needs more than Workshops READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Feb 21, 2025 READING TIME 5 min & 19 sec Dear Reader, 'Product Strategy by Post-it' occurs when teams prioritize filling out frameworks over making real strategic choices. It's a common symptom of treating strategy as a checkbox exercise rather than a tool for decision-making. John Cutler even suggests that most frameworks should feature a warning label like this: "This framework is...