My 2025 Annual Review

​Dear Reader,​

This is my last newsletter of 2025. I will return to my weekly writing cadence on January 8, 2026.

What I focused on in the second half of 2025

After wrapping up the first half of 2025, the rest of the year continued to be a dense mix of experiences.

Publishing my Book. It sometimes still feels surreal to see reviews and physical copies of my book. Real Progress: How to Connect the Dots of Product Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery, out there in the wild. I am immensely proud of how the book turned out visually and content-wise, and love seeing what it unlocks for product teams.

Talking about my Book. Whether it was at meetups, conferences, in-house company events, podcasts, or guest posts: I enjoyed spreading the word about the biggest ideas that let me work through the last 2,5 years.

Continuing to Serve Clients. Across industries and company sizes, I (again) felt grateful for the possibility to having worked with amazing companies and supporting them on their journey to better practices and less Alibi Progress.

On a personal note, the definitive highlights of this second half of the year were moving into our new apartment as a family, nature-first explorations of our surroundings, a cooking class in one of my absolute favorite hotels in Weimar, and a profound personal development retreat I attended on the island of Crete.

What I will focus on in 2026

Besides my public workshops, talks, and consulting work, here are the themes I will prioritize next year:

Continuing to Talk about my Book. There are a few exciting podcasts, conferences, and collaborations lined up to spread the ideas of Real Progress further.

Portraying Internal or Platform Product Teams. This will be one of my main content themes for 2026: I believe the quality of work happening behind the scenes in many companies is undervalued, and the work of internal teams deserves more recognition and opportunity to improve. If you want to share the story and practices of your internal or platform team, please respond to this email to discuss this.

Portraying Teams that Broke the Rules. In the spirit of Real Progress, I want to portray teams that took a framework by the book and bent it to their needs without worrying about "correctness." If this is you, please respond to this email for a chance to appear in my newsletter and blog.

Hosting Public Monthly Live Sessions. I enjoy the messiness of thinking through real-life challenges on the go, by connecting them to proven practices. That's why I will start hosting free monthly live sessions that anyone can join. These won't have recordings available and will focus on the live interactions with participants and on working through their questions and challenges. Expect the first date to be announced in early January.

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.

​Tim​

Join my In-Person Workshops in Berlin

I'm excited to bring my beloved in-person workshops back to Berlin in January 2026. You can choose between 1-day workshops on ​Product Strategy​, ​Product OKRs​, or ​Product ​​Discovery​, or opt for the full 3-day experience for you or your team.

(reach out for custom team quotes)

If you consume one thing this week, make it this...

The Complete Guide to AI Prototyping Tools Read it here

Who is Tim Herbig?

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.