John Dewsnap

WCAG is a spec. It is not a definition of done. If you're a VP of #Product, Director of #Engineering, or #Compliance Manager hiring someone to “own #accessibility,” this message is for you. We need to talk about the myth that “meeting WCAG” means something is "done". #WCAG is a library of philosophical success criterion — it’s not an instruction manual, not a checklist, and definitely not a substitute for policies, training, or process change. It’s like saying your app is #secure because your team reviewed the #OWASP Top 10 that one time. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines were never meant to be your only tool. It's not even a floor, and definitely not the ceiling. It's like referring your teams to a legal policy document. If you’re hiring someone to build an accessibility program, give them the authority and structure to do more than recite WCAG. - You need plain language rules they understand - You need accessibility acceptance criteria baked into each Jira ticket - You need frictionless training that matches team roles - You need policies with monitored (and enforceable) targets - You need leadership to hold teams accountable with objective data Without strategy, policies and tactics, an accessibility program is just a team of firefighters — solving the same problems but not fixing the system — but with the right programs in place, accessibility is an innovative asset.

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Product leader: Our engineering org uses [xxxxxxx] for program/portfolio management, but I've never spent a single second in that tool. This is a mid 6, low 7-figure mystery budget line, but it also makes complete sense. Most program/portfolio tools were designed for a decades-old version of program and portfolio management. Centralized IT teams. PMO as "gate", channeling the needs of countless business groups into a centralized group of developers. Mind-numbing spreadsheets with an engineer per row...their time dolled out across projects to please the optics requirements of a disconnected finance partner. "Product managers on the business side, POs on the 'tech side'". Teams measured on ‘say do’ ratios and ‘predictability’ The world has changed for many companies. Those models don't cut it anymore. Teams/groups are more independent. They are aligned around outcomes. Yes, you still have cross-cutting dependencies and strategic initiatives, but the PMO is no longer the gate, report generator, and glorified scaled project manager. Companies are looking for other solutions — and it shows. 1. Mad-scientist no-code setups that work brilliantly until the person who built them leaves. 2. Over-customized frontline tools that eventually become unusable for everyone. 3. Rigid platforms that force teams to work their way instead of adapting to yours. 4. OKR tools that handle goals well but only solve one part of the puzzle. If anyone of this resonates...reach out.

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Your product and engineering teams are slow because you keep giving them more to do. Last quarter, we tried something new. We eliminated half of the projects we are working on. Each team will only have one HERO project + 1-2 small initiatives. We were able to ship 2x the amount of items we shipped in the previous quarters. Focus. Do fewer things, and you will end up shipping more high-quality work.

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Great design doesn't just look good, it works for everyone. Yet, accessibility is often addressed late, turning quick fixes into costly repairs. Today, we’re launching BrowserStack’s Accessibility Design Toolkit, a Figma plugin that helps teams shift accessibility left. 🚀 Powered by our proprietary Spectra™ Rule Engine, it scans Figma design files in real time, suggests AI-powered improvements, and generates annotated handoffs for dev teams. Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought. It belongs at the heart of how we build digital products, right from the start. Learn more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dxruPsBY #DesignA11Y #FigmaPlugin #ShiftLeft

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Is your company's knowledge scattered across a dozen different apps? I know the pain of juggling presentations, docs, Figma files, and spreadsheets. I've also seen so many of you using our new product, #mondayvibe, to solve this exact problem, which inspired me to create this short video. I'll show you how I built a central hub right inside our monday.com account, including: ✨ Embedded Google Slides, Docs & Sheets ✨ Figma designs ✨ monday forms & canvas ✨ A live YouTube video player ✨ Even a map with the best pubs in London for our visitors! The best part? I built this in minutes with zero code. I just opened monday vibe, our #vibecoding product and told it what to do: 'Build a Knowledge Base Portal. It needs a header with a search bar, cards for each link, and category filters on the left. When I click a card, open a preview and embed the link inside it.' This app is secure, scalable, and making changes is as simple as chatting: "Change the color to Pink." ✅ Watch the quick video to see how you can build your own! 👇 I'm always amazed by what you're all building. If you have a cool vibe or an interesting idea, please share it in the comments, I'd love to feature it next time!

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People often describe the Product Manager as the “GM of the product.” I’m not sure that’s quite right! You’re not the CEO. You don’t have direct authority. Instead, you sit at the center of a complex web of stakeholders: - Engineering - Design - Go-to-market - Customer success - And, most importantly, your customers Your job? Be the hub of clarity. That clarity comes in three phases: 1. Clarity on What to solve: Cut through the noise. Find the highest-leverage pain point or opportunity for the business. 2. Clarity on How to solve it: Push for depth. Explore multiple paths before settling on the best one. 3. Clarity on Execution: Make sure the build team knows exactly what success looks like—and ensure the GTM team can position it effectively. You don’t need to “own” everything. But you do need to make sure everyone is aligned and moving toward the same outcome. At the end of the day, your job is: Do whatever it takes to make the product successful by bringing clarity at every step. But clarity doesn’t come easy. Most PMs don’t lack ideas, they lack signal. Overwhelmed by the fragmented feedback from customers, stakeholders, and competitors, and no systematic way to cut through it. That’s where Enterpret comes in. We help you identify the right problems to solve by analyzing customer feedback at scale. And we help you align on how to solve them by surfacing the insights and opportunities that matter most. So you can spend less time debating what’s real, and more time driving impact.

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Product leadership has changed over the years. The focus is much less on theoretical frameworks and more on clear business results. The energy’s different. The pressure is heavier. We’re leading leaner teams, in tighter markets, with way more eyes on outcomes. Everyone's tired. A few months back, GoldHue asked me to get in a room with other product heads from top tech companies. No agenda. Just honest truth. We wanted to talk about what we could leave behind and what we need to build next. We ran real experiments that tested new ways of working, and focused on simplicity, clarity and results. What came out of it wasn’t just useful. It was clear, repeatable, and it worked. We put everything into a white paper: The New Age of Product. Not another playbook. A practical reset. A few things we found: → Heavy goal frameworks are broken. The best teams are moving toward leaner, adaptable methods that drive focus and execution. → More metrics don’t mean better insights. High-performing teams track fewer, smarter metrics tied directly to strategic goals. → The speed vs strategy tradeoff is more brutal than ever. If you’ve felt the shift too, this is for you. And if you’re leading in the grey and tired of pretending it’s black and white, we hope this helps you. You can find the link in the comments, and thanks to my fellow Product Club members: Randi Eichenbaum, Mell Ravenel, Jamie Landers, Marisa Sires, Colleen Wilson, Jason Butterfield, Tara Goldman, Mackenzie Hughes

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After 10 years of building Productboard, we're shipping something that feels like magic: an AI agent built specifically for product management. Here's the thing—product teams are drowning in context. Customer feedback lives in 12 different tools. That brilliant insight from last quarter? Gone when someone leaves. And you're still making calls based on vibes instead of the full picture. Generic AI tools? They're helpful until the conversation ends and they forget everything. Spark is different. It lives in Productboard. It remembers. It knows your customers, your product, your strategy, and it gets smarter as your team does. What you can do right now: → Generate PRDs that pull from your actual customer data → Turn messy feedback into clear, lasting insights → Keep competitive battle cards fresh without the manual grind This is organizational memory that actually sticks. Context that doesn't disappear. Clarity without the chaos. #ProductManagement is about to get a whole lot more fun. Ready to try Spark? Join the beta: https://lnkd.in/grDPp_xQ #ProductManagement #AI #ProductDevelopment

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Hiring Product Managers is brutal. You post an opening and get thousands of resumes hourly. The problem? Most aren't even qualified, and of those who are, their resumes often don't truly reflect who they are. How do you really know how a candidate will perform on the job? Can they articulate their ideas? Do they have solid insights to share? Are they capable of structured, critical thinking? It's a real pain trying to gauge a candidate's true personality, problem-solving abilities and real-world fit from a stack of papers. That's why we're launching Live Micro-Teardowns – an unconventional, refreshing approach to PM hiring. This initiative is specifically for PM leaders and hiring managers looking to bring new talent onto their teams. It's our way of adding a crucial layer to your hiring process: giving you a genuine preview of how potential candidates tackle actual product challenges. Think of it as adding a dash of their real-time problem-solving and personality directly to their profile. There's absolutely no pressure or commitment to hire anyone. We believe deeply in our community members; they're truly among the best. Once you see their approach, their critical thinking, and their collaborative spirit in action, we think you'll find it incredibly difficult not to consider them. If your team is currently hiring or planning to hire Product Managers, comment "Hiring" below, and we'll send you the next steps.

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Should you always listen to your users? Most product managers would say yes without hesitation. This assumption can be problematic, especially in regulated industries. This week, I spoke with Magda Armbruster, head of product at Natural Cycles°, the world's first FDA-cleared birth control app. Her take? "We cannot only listen to our users. We cannot only do what our medical advisors want us to do." Many teams swing between being completely user-driven, building whatever gets the loudest feedback, and being totally expert-driven, ignoring what users actually want. Natural Cycles found a different path. They collect user feedback through in-app surveys, NPS, and research, but they balance it with input from their medical advisory board. They test small features first to see how this balance plays out in practice. Users might want a feature that feels great but contradicts medical best practices, while experts might push for something scientifically sound but terrible for user experience. The sweet spot? A systematic approach that weighs multiple input sources rather than defaulting to "the customer is always right." How do you balance user feedback with expert knowledge in your product decisions?

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