When AI was just a sci-fi footnote and “product transformation” sounded like a buzzword, Michael Luchen was already in the trenches. In this episode, Hannah sits down with the original host of The Product Manager Podcast to unpack three years of change—from his early missteps to building scalable systems and navigating the AI tidal wave with nuance and strategy.
Michael, now a self-described "Product Transformation Architect," brings candor and depth as he reflects on what it really takes to shift product culture, orchestrate cross-org alignment, and keep your teams (and kids) curious. Whether you’re wrangling a roadmap or sketching ideas on construction paper, this one’s for you.
Resources from this episode:
- Subscribe to The Product Manager newsletter
- Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
- Check out Michael’s website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hannah Clark (00:01):
Here's a crazy exercise for you.
Try to picture a day in yourown life three years ago.
In 2022, the big topics ofthe day were things like
product-led growth versussales-led growth, and the
debate around return-to-officeversus remote-first.
AI felt like an optional sidequest, and the employment
landscape felt like a buyer'smarket for job seekers.
Oh, how things have changed insuch a short period of time.
(00:24):
But another differencewas that this show had a
different host—and thatformer host is my guest today.
Michael Luchen has spent thepast three years shifting his
focus into product leadership,and as a Product Transformation
Architect, he's been in theweeds through a pivotal time
when the only constant hasbeen changed, both outside
and within product teams.
In today's episode, we'll bereflecting on the strategic
and tactical bets he's madeover the past several years,
(00:46):
the ones that worked, the onesthat didn't, and where the
wind is blowing for productmanagement as we move into
the second half of 2025.
Let's jump in.
Oh, by the way, wehold conversations
like this every week.
So if this sounds interestingto you, why not subscribe?
Okay, now let's jump in.
Welcome back to theProduct Manager podcast.
I'm here today withMichael Luchen, who some
(01:07):
of you might remember.
Michael, thank youfor joining us today.
Michael Luchen (01:10):
Thanks, Hannah.
Great to be here again.
Hannah Clark (01:13):
Yeah.
First of all, can you tellus a little bit about your
background and how you gotto where you are today?
Michael Luchen (01:18):
Yes, so hey everyone.
I'm Michael, former host ofthis podcast, but more lately,
I refer to myself as a producttransformation architect.
And my focus has beenhelping on growth stage
companies build product orgsthat ship like startups.
Scale like enterprises.
So personally, I've had 12plus years of experience
working on over 50 productsfrom 10 person startups to
(01:41):
global brands like Adidas.
And through this time I'velearned that companies that
win aren't just ideal rich,but they're systems driven.
And so from my experience, greatproduct systems turn vision
into repeatable execution.
And this insight comesfrom leading products
across every imaginablecontext in org structure.
Each one teaching menew patterns about
(02:02):
what actually works.
Most recently, I was thedirector of product at Float,
where I transformed a productorg from irregular releases to
continuous cadences of deliveryacross all the teams helping
achieve significant ARR growthand the G2 number one position.
For that, I spent nine yearsat Crema, fantastic leading
digital product agency, leadingtheir product management
practice for the agency and forclients from elite consulting
(02:24):
firms to early stage startups.
And then on a personal level,I'm a systems thinker at heart.
Whether I'm architectingproduct ops, framing a shot
with my Fuji, or building Legowith my kids, always exploring
how pieces fit together.
It creates something greaterthan the sum other parts.
Hannah Clark (02:39):
Very cool.
And we've been talking alot about systems thinking
on the show recently thisis slots are right into our
thematic little situation here.
So we were the foundinghost, actually, of the
product manager podcast.
So thanks for laying thegroundwork here for the show.
That was, I wanna say, 2022.
Not really a long timeago, but in product land
that's like decades now.
(02:59):
The discipline lookedcompletely different.
So what have you found to be thebiggest shifts from then to now?
Rewind and compare whatthe discipline looked
like then and what are youseeing out in the field?
Michael Luchen (03:11):
Yeah, it's a really good question because I
think in our industry we feellike this constant wave of
change that we have to ride.
There's no like ever one fixedprocess or structure or way
that we collaborate as productmanagers and with product
teams to get great work doneand out to our customers.
And so it's really hard toanswer this question because
honestly, I've been thinkingabout what's next right now as I
(03:32):
answer the shift that I've seen.
So what is that shift like?
When I first started hostingthis podcast that time,
there was two worlds ofthinking that we're competing.
There was either the featurefactory type, we've got
a really defined processfor better and for worse.
But then there was alsolike the pure agile scrum
almost warship to an extent.
Teams, pick your poison orif you're at the enterprise
(03:54):
scale, it was safe.
And now I'm seeing that reallyhaving like taken a backseat.
Like those processesare still there.
Waterfall's still there,scrum is still there.
Safe is still therefor better and worse.
But what I see that the teamsthat are succeeding, are doing
is they're really looking attheir own product culture,
their own ways of thinking, thepeople on the team, and they're
picking and choosing piecesfrom each of those processes
(04:16):
without naming it as process.
Really creating a systematicway of how they approach
building great product andhaving fun doing it in a way
that leads to that continuousdiscovery and delivery.
Hannah Clark (04:26):
Okay.
So I wanna pivot a littlebit and talk about something
that we don't usually talkabout on the show, but I
think is so compelling,which is a failure story.
You had mentioned before in aprevious conversation that you
had a transformation initiativeat Float, which failed the
first time around what happened.
What's the postmortem onthis and what have you
learned in the wake of that?
Michael Luchen (04:45):
Yeah, so I started at Float after my,
nine years in agency space,like having the privilege
of being able to work withso many different orgs.
And so I had seen it allin terms of the patterns
of, small orgs, large orgs,orgs that were getting
over a growth stage hump.
And so I came in the Float andI saw some of these patterns.
I had been talking to everyoneup and down and across the org.
Everybody was aligned onthese patterns of the pain
(05:08):
points around the process.
And what was slowing down ourability to ship great work.
So I came in there, I gottrusted by the CEO and the two,
basically two co-founders togive a presentation in person at
the first all company offsite.
A few months into the role I waslike, we're moving to squads.
This is gonna be great.
And the presentation was great.
(05:28):
Everyone loved it, includingthe two co-founders.
Everyone throughoutthat meetup was saying,
this really resonates.
This is gonna solveall our pain points.
And then over the next fewmonths, it dissipated and
we started to go back toour old ways of working.
And so what I realized inretrospect was even though I
came in and I was like, here'sthe problem, and everybody
agreed with that problem andeverybody agreed with the
(05:50):
way to fix that problem, thereality is that it wasn't the
right time to make such a bigmove to process improvement.
Part of this was just dueto how we had grown the
org we were hiring for.
And we had specialized rolesin engineering, for example.
And so if something happenedor somebody was building a
feature that needed a veryspecific skillset, there was
(06:12):
only one person that could dothat, and that would of course
throw a wrench in any sort ofkind of sustainable squads.
The other aspect I learned fromthis is that culture change.
It takes time.
It's not just onepresentation, even if
everybody's bought into it.
It is that series of ongoingconversations, very much
nuanced, things that you'reworking through on a one-to-one
(06:32):
level or in a team setting.
And yeah, I'llnever forget that.
And it's funny because ifchatting with the CEO later
about this, we laugh aboutit today, about coming in,
guns a blazing, we're gonnachange and then that happened.
Hannah Clark (06:47):
I guess this is like the systems thinking kinda
thing, is that you kinda haveto take into account all the
reasons why something mightnot work and and then also
evaluate things from the sameperspective of oh, what were
the other context pieces thatkinda inform how we might wanna
re-approach this in the future.
So I wanna talk aboutthe practical sign
of transformation.
You developed a frameworkfor mapping org-wide pain
(07:10):
points using Miro tool thatmost of us are familiar with.
So how did you identify,what was the process for
identifying the frictionpoints beyond just product and
what did the process actuallylook like from day to day?
Michael Luchen (07:20):
Yeah.
I think even before you getinto the tools, just having
curiosity and empathy.
So I remember when I startedat Float and these same
lessons apply to some ofthe clients that I worked
with in my time at Crema.
You hear a lot of pain andlike challenges of oh it takes.
And these are just broadexamples over my career,
but it like, it takes thislong for, designs to be
(07:41):
ready so I can build them.
Or maybe they're, not alignedwith what we wanna build
or, there's no clear scope,alignment or definition of done.
All the things that we allfeel in our practice, the pain
points every day, and the thingsthat we hear from our team.
And I think what's reallyeasy to do is to have a
kneejerk reaction where.
You take that and you weaponizethat to try to force a solve
(08:03):
for that one specific painpoint if you're the leader
of that person's team.
And so for me, like at Float,I was director of product
overseeing the product manager'sdata UX research, and for a
time design before it grewonto into its own department.
And so naturally, like myinstinct is to protect my team,
but I had to set that aside inorder to go about this exercise
and not only meet one-on-onewith people across my team.
(08:26):
A cross section of the org fromengineers to marketing to even
customer success and sales.
What's working well?
What are you not getting?
Like what are the painpoints that you're feeling
and how we shift greatproduct and talk about that
product to our customers.
And it's just a conversation.
You don't go into it judging.
You don't go into ittrying to point blame or
fingers at one another.
(08:47):
And if you set that up andyou just have that honest.
Curious conversation.
You get so much great insightthat you can then map to sticky
notes on a mirror board andstart to identify what those
themes are once you do that,and once I have that, then I go
and I map like alongside that.
It doesn't matter when beforeor after those conversations,
what is the process that thecompany has agreed upon, and
(09:11):
you can pretty easily see likewhat are those discrepancies?
Then from there I take thosediscrepancies and those themes
that have those pain pointsacross the org and basically
map it to a new visual process.
And from there, that's what Iuse as the foundation to seek
alignment with the folks Italked with, but also across
the entire org up and downthe entire org on these are
(09:33):
the things we want to try,these are the process change
experiments we wanna make.
Once you have that buy-inbecause you're actually building
it on top of the real life painpoints that everybody is feeling
across the org, like you rarelyget any pushback from that.
Hannah Clark (09:45):
That's awesome.
And I was just gonna pushon that point because
I think the buy-in isoften the hardest part.
Even if the proposed solution onthe surface is gonna create that
source of relief for those painpoints, change is difficult.
It's really difficult to changepeople's habits and workflows.
And for example,like you'd mentioned.
Before that Float had apretty specialized engineering
(10:05):
culture, and so moving towardsmore of a cross-functional
product squad wasn't quite aswell received, or there was a
little bit of tension there.
So how do you manage situationslike that and ease transitions
when you're trying to transformthings and make life easier?
Like how do you acquirethat buy-in with more.
When there's tension to balance?
Michael Luchen (10:25):
Yeah, it's a good question.
And it comes down to, no punintended, the actual intent
of Float as a product, whichis resource management.
And having those discussionsthat lead to that, because
it was really aboutclarity and respect.
Without having those clearlines of communication with
partners across the org orrespect in doing so, then what
(10:45):
happens is like that's where youcan have friction, but if you
really focus on collaboratingon, okay, let's say there's
this really specialized.
Individual that we wannahave dedicated to a squad,
for example, but they haveto support like this really
key piece of infrastructure.
It's, you can't answerthat black and white.
So usually the options arewe can hire, but hiring and
onboarding that the quality thatFloat does, it takes some time.
(11:08):
So then what's theplan B in the interim?
That's where capacity planningand resource management
comes into play and aligningon those trade-offs.
And so this gets to two angles.
One, it's the person andthe individual themselves.
Are they approachingthis in a healthy way?
If, are they beingallocated to a squad like
halftime or full-time orwhatever that looks like?
How are they serving kind ofthose specialized needs of
(11:28):
support or mentoring acrossthe org that they have?
And are we okaywith that trade off?
Usually the answer is we don'twanna like split that focus.
And so then it gets back intothe product roadmap, and this is
where I really see the value ofops and product coming together
because you can't answer likehow do we actually allocate
this person effectively withoutthe context of what are the.
(11:50):
That's, that we're makingor deferring based on our
staffing approach to settingup these squads for success.
Hannah Clark (11:56):
That's a really good point.
Okay.
Tell me how the role ofpractical rituals fits
into that scenario.
'cause you'd come up withsomething called One Team,
One Roadmap, and you'd setup some async design sprints
to facilitate some of this.
So how did that evolve andwhat did you find were like
some of the most helpfultakeaways from that time?
Michael Luchen (12:13):
Yeah.
One team, one roadmap wasreally the culmination
of all of my producttransformation work at Float.
From coming in with that failedsquad implementation that later
did transform into a successfullasting implementation.
Once you, we did make thatinvestment and the cultural
investment, the hiringinvestments, but one team,
one roadmap really came upabout as Float was scaling.
(12:33):
Now it's okay, there'sall these product squads.
There's also platform squads.
There's like marketing focusedwork going on over here.
Now product marketingis asking questions
like, what's coming up?
Sales is asking questions like,how can I tell the narrative
authentically of what'scoming down the pipe or not?
How can I authentically involveproduct managers as spokespeople
(12:55):
when we have like really keynew client opportunities?
And then of course, the twoco-founders are asking questions
as well, like, how do we makesure we're budgeting right and
investing in the right way?
So one team, one roadmapwas really about today.
Each squad has their roadmap.
Each platform teamhas a roadmap.
These are all like managedtime separately and linear.
Let's bring this together in areally systematic way that is as
(13:17):
lean as possible, but providesas much up-to-date context as
possible without taking as muchtime as possible from the people
that are involved in that.
And so there was really thesystems piece of it first,
which using some of the newerlinear roadmap features were
able to create some greatsave roadmap views of all the,
basically all the product andplatform, et cetera, streams
(13:39):
that were ongoing at a time.
This was really great becauseit meant that the product teams
actually doing this reallyonly just how to provide a
status update and linear.
A very lean one.
Every now and then, thosestatus updates will go out to a
channel that I set up in Slack.
So anyone across the org,regardless of how close they
were to any sort of this productwork, could subscribe to that
(13:59):
channel if they just wanted tobe aware of what was happening.
And usually that channelwould include like a Loom
demo or even a link to a testenvironment if they wanted
to play around with it.
Then I also paired that with.
A ongoing monthlyproduct huddle.
These were 60 minute sessionsthat were focused on demos.
Only product managers acrossthe product teams would share
(14:20):
and celebrate their team andwhat they've been working on.
And then platform leadsacross the platform.
Teams would be doing thesimilar work as well.
These were actually biweekly,I say monthly because that's
how often people wouldhave to attend these, but
I intentionally set themup as biweekly because
we had async team membersacross 15 plus time zones.
And so to be respectful oftime zones, we wanted to
(14:41):
alternate ultimately how wepresented this to make the best
respect of everyone's time.
And so this radical transparencyultimately that was being
shared through these focusproduct huddles through the
completely automated linearroadmap updates, and then the,
so every so often project statusupdates that would get piped
into Slack with live demos, itcreated this transparency that
(15:03):
built trust, that created aculture of shared understanding
so that we can make thedecisions on how we move forward
across, all teams effectively.
Hannah Clark (15:11):
Yeah, and I'm also really getting like this,
it's a huge amount of empathyfor people's different learning
styles and ability to integratethemselves into the strategy
at their own pace and be ableto there's the multiple levels
of being able to get buy-infrom different stakeholders.
So I really appreciatethis layered approach.
Michael Luchen (15:27):
That also like segues into what you mentioned
around design sprints as well.
So at Crema, like I had spentyears leading design sprints
with clients and new teamsand I think that today I don't
believe you have to necessarilyfollow the, buy the book
async design or design sprintprocess, but I do believe
it's kinda pick your own kindof tools that you cultivate
(15:47):
what your own design sprintlooks like for that alignment.
And so at Flow to align onthat strategic piece, I shifted
that into async design sprints.
And so it was essentially likea fig jam board at the time
of, how do you take a five daysprint of exercises and then
move it into an async format?
You gotta have more timebecause people on one hemisphere
(16:08):
are going to sleep aftercontributing to that board.
And then the other hemisphere iswaking up, reviewing, and then
sharing back what they thoughtasynchronously on that board.
So extended it to two weeks.
And what this leads to isactually you get like more
participation because peoplehave the time and the context of
their own environments to safelyshare what's on their mind and
add comments to that discussion.
(16:28):
And then you can always elevateit to a one-off sync discussion
if you want to talk aboutanything that is a hot button
topic that usually comes upin these strategy debates.
Hannah Clark (16:37):
Yeah, it sounds to me almost like a pen pal
versus classroom dynamic.
There's there a little bitmore, some degree of safety and
being able to put out thoughtswithout the sense of immediate
judgment or immediate, likeoverthinking what other people
are gonna think in the moment.
Michael Luchen (16:51):
Exactly, yeah.
And being able to shift backand forth between the two.
Again, ultimately outta respectof what's best for the team.
Hannah Clark (16:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
I'm gonna change gears alittle bit because we can't
get through this conversationwithout mentioning everyone's
favorite two letter word,which should be AI of course.
So when you would'vebeen hosting this show.
I don't think anyone wasreally talking about AI in any
certain terms, and now it'sall anyone wants to talk about.
(17:18):
At the time that you would'vegone been here, we would've
been talking about AI asreally Actually I even remember
I was coming onto the teamright around that time and
I remember the conversationsaround AI were very loose.
It didn't really seem thatthe technology was ready
yet to be useful, and noweveryone is in a rush to
adopt AI in every workflowand in and their products.
(17:41):
So at Float, what was theapproach to AI integration?
And obviouslythat's a huge thing.
You were navigatingthis, you've been really
close to that project inthe last little while.
How did you navigate that?
Michael Luchen (17:53):
It's really interesting 'cause I think in
the early days when ChatGPTfirst came out, I was in awe
and enamored by the product,much like everyone was.
And so I started experimentingwith it and I started.
Researching some of thecapabilities and the
opportunities that we had froma product perspective with it
just outta personal interest.
And then I started to bringit back into how do I apply
(18:13):
this to the product at Float?
So I started like mapping outsome ideas and ultimately that
just led into a side passionproject of mine where I remember
I put together this like bignotion doc white paper that
had some of my own kind ofbeliefs of it was the early
days at the time, but whereis this modern LLM tech going?
Where is it gonna be inthree months, six months,
(18:33):
one year, three years?
And how's that gonna impactSaaS, particularly B2B
SaaS that Float serves.
So then bringing in someindustry references, I was like
actually, how do you make betsthat we need to invest in from
a product perspective today?
And make sure that we're timingthose bets appropriately,
but also not, like throwingeverything away and just
focusing solely on AI as wasso the temptation at the time.
(18:57):
And then also a few sketchestoo, like mapping some of our
data points in the API to ifwe had this available to LLM.
What are some of the thingswe could do with this?
And so it was really justfrom a place of curiosity that
led to this doc that I thencreated and shared with the
rest of the leadership teamand got a lot of really great
excitement and buy-in from that.
(19:18):
We actually ended upconsulting with a generative AI
consultancy out of Melbourne.
A couple great guys moved 37,and they really guided us on.
Not just how to approach AI,but making sure that we approach
it in a way that aligns withwhat we wanna provide from a
user facing value perspective.
(19:39):
And so the earliest kind ofseparation they provided was the
difference between structureddata and unstructured data.
At the time, we were alsolooking at, improvements
to make to the reportingproduct that Float has.
But a lot of thoseimprovements you could
make just with structureddata and some improvements
to the database that westarted working on later.
The unstructured data isreally where generative
(19:59):
AI, that ambiguous stuffthat we use every day with
ChatGPT or Claude comesfrom, and that's where able
to separate the experiments.
The core thing that camefrom that was focusing
on the agent workflows.
They helped us create anagent playground that allowed
us to play with some of thedata to get some varying
results so that we could seeand figure out how might we
(20:20):
implement this in the product?
And so for me what thatmeant is as a product person
moving forward, I'm lookingat not just user flows.
But I'm also lookingat agent flows.
So I started designing thingswhere we would have yeah, the
user flow, the user does X,so they can do get y result.
But then like almost under,like quite actually literally
(20:40):
from a visual underneath thathere's what the agent is doing
in the background to helpsupport the user in that result.
This was different from a lotof the implementations that
you see in the industry whereit's a chat box, a glorified
chat box, and those are fine.
They're great quick ways tointeract with data as quickly
as possible, but it's also notthe idea that user experience,
(21:02):
I think of where AI has thecapability of going in terms
of product integration.
That gets better with useover time, but you don't
necessarily have to use orknow as a user that you're
actually interacting with AI.
Hannah Clark (21:14):
Okay.
I'm gonna change gearson you one more time.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe differences in how PMs need
to operate now, because we'relooking at transformation on
all levels, culturally as anindustry and in the actual role
of product managers as well,who are now moving from a very
execution focused role to onethat's very much more strategic.
So in your experience, leadingtransformation, how do you
(21:35):
advise product leaders to guidetheir PMs into adjusting their
approach and adopting someof these more kind of radical
shifts in focus and skillset.
Michael Luchen (21:44):
So it's an interesting one 'cause I'm
actually gonna leave witha hot take that I've held
true to throughout my careerand I continue to even more
a great product manager orproduct person, if you're
wearing that hat, is holdingboth execution and strategy
together at the same time.
And typically, I know that'sa hot take because the way
I've seen it is, and I thinkwhat your question alludes
to is there are people thatsay if you're just doing
(22:07):
execution, you're just aglorified project manager.
Or if you are just doingstrategy, you're a mini CEO,
I think both takes are toxicand I think what is ultimately
good is, and where the PM hasan increasingly unique ability
to guide an org forward inis balancing both how do we
execute this in a way thatbrings together the expertise
of everybody across the productteam from development to
(22:28):
design QA and more in a waythat strategically serves the
needs of the business and theopportunities of the market
and the customer and more.
And that's easier said thandone because during this, and
I think where some of thesearguments that are more black
and white thinking have hadmerit in the past is that
they'll say these two arejust at odds with one another.
Like you can't be strategic ifyou're thinking about how you're
(22:50):
gonna efficiently get this done.
I disagree with that because Ithink when you, as I've shared
through some of these otherkind of stories, like when you
lead with empathy and you leadwith curiosity, it gets you
to a place where you have allthe context in front of you.
If you're using a Miro boardor a fig jam board, you got
sticky notes with your team.
It's almost like a messyarchitectural desk, and you
can move all the pieces aroundto see like what's the best,
(23:10):
most effective way that we canstrategically execute this.
It's gonna guarantee us results.
But it's also makingan efficient use and a
respectful use of theteam's time, and everybody's
coming together for that.
What this means for those whoare more execution focused
today is to like actually leadwith curiosity and think about
from a strategic perspective,what are the things that you're
(23:32):
hearing from your engineeringcounterparts in terms of, tech
debt concerns or new technicalopportunities on the horizon, or
things that they're exploring?
What are you seeingfrom design in terms of.
New design stacks or ways ofapproaching how you do that,
and then of course, what areyou as a product manager seeing
in terms of what you're hearingfrom customers in the business.
You bring all that togetherand I think you can have
(23:53):
like just a really greatapproach to execution and
strategic, moving the strategyforward at the same time.
Hannah Clark (24:00):
I don't even think that's a very hot take.
I think that's a verygood take, firstly.
Okay, let's end it off onsomething a little lighter,
a little bit more personal.
'Cause you had mentioned tome that you've been doing
some AI building projectswith your son on the side,
which I think is very cool.
Tell me a little bit, 'causewe've discussed through our
newsletter and the like,which, if you're listening
and you're not subscribed,why aren't you subscribe?
(24:22):
We did discuss a littlebit about how parenting
can really inform yourapproach as a product
manager, as a product leader.
So how has your life orparenting informed your
approach to leadershipand transformation?
Michael Luchen (24:32):
Yeah, I try to let both sides of my
life influence one another.
I'd like to say my work-lifebalance is pretty good, but
the reality is what I do isalso my personal passion.
And so I try tobridge those gaps.
So recently my son, he's fiveand a half, and one day he
came home from school andhe's Hey dad, can we build
this Ninja video game and putit on the PlayStation vibe?
And I'm like, okay I couldeither say yeah, let's
(24:54):
think about it, buddy.
Or yeah, let's figure it out.
At the time I haven'treally done any game
development, but in my mindI was like, you know what?
I'm actually gonna take this asan opportunity to bridge some
of that experimentation thatI'm doing for work with him.
And I was like,let's figure it out.
We'll use this newtechnology called AI on dad's
computer and we'll do that.
So what was interestingis then I started just
(25:16):
bringing in like the productdevelopment approach that I
use without telling him that.
And so I was like, Hey, whydon't you start sketching
out your ideas of who thecharacter's gonna be and
like how the gameplay'sgonna be and all that.
Ideation and discovery, right?
And so he starts like massing,like literally this pile
of construction paper overa week or so with that.
And then we finally get timeto sit down and I say, why
(25:38):
don't you sit down here?
And we talk about what isthe approach to the game?
And I was basicallyrecording this using a
transcription tool on my Mac.
Took this interview, droppedit at ChatGPT, asked it to
create a game developmentdoc, and then asked it to
bring that into somethingthat an AI tool could handle.
And so from at the time, whatI had heard is that, it's like
you wanna tailor it for themindset of a junior developer.
(26:01):
And so that's what I used tocreate kinda this level one
concept of this ninja game.
This is requirements gathering.
And so then I take it and Idrop this into, I was using
Bolt at the time as and clean itup the prompt up a little bit.
It created it, and nowwe're play testing.
Now we're doing QA onproduction, and he's saying
the sound doesn't work.
The controls are a little iffy.
(26:22):
Okay, cool.
We're providing thatfeedback, and we're iterate.
Now we got the loop goingon, and it eventually
gets to the point wherehe's excited to share it
with family and friends.
And then of course, later.
Now we're iteratingwith other ideas.
How do we turn itinto a 3D movie?
Cool, let's pull upGoogle's VO model and
it just goes on and on.
So I was bringingthat product thinking.
(26:42):
Which, if you think aboutproduct thinking at its core,
it's really based on like thescientific hypothesis and kind
of the scientific methodologyand the way of approaching that.
And so yeah, I try tojust bridge those two
worlds in my day-to-day.
Hannah Clark (26:52):
I think that is a much more thorough
example of bridging.
I think most peoplewe've talked to are.
Yeah.
Sometimes they have to convincehim to eat their broccoli.
Yes.
In your case, your kid literallyhas a product development
resume before he's able to read.
That's very impressive.
Michael Luchen (27:11):
I guess so I re, I remember when I was his
age, it's it was like, I waslike, I would be so cool to
like work for a Nintendo orsomething, I was like reading
Nintendo Power back in theday to just date my age.
Now you don't need to do that.
Like he can just get onand start saying what he
wants and go from there.
It's pretty cool.
Hannah Clark (27:27):
Oh, cool.
Thank you.
That's an absolutely incredibleexample and also a humbling
example from parent to parent.
I'm gonna have to update mylist of rainy day activities.
Michael Luchen (27:37):
Yes, yes.
It's a good one.
Hannah Clark (27:40):
Thank you so much for making time to come back,
check in with us, and yeah,it's been so great to, to talk
about what you've been up to.
Where can peoplefollow you online?
Michael Luchen (27:48):
Yes, you can go to michaelluchen.com
and there's links to all thevarious platforms I'm on, so
yeah, I'd love to connect.
Don't hesitate to reach out.
Hannah Clark (27:59):
Thank you so much, Michael.
Michael Luchen (28:00):
Awesome.
Thanks Hannah.
Great to be back.
Hannah Clark (28:05):
Thanks for listening in.
For more great insights,how-to guides and tool reviews,
subscribe to our newsletter attheproductmanager.com/subscribe.
You can hear more conversationslike this by subscribing to
The Product Manager whereveryou get your podcasts.
Here's a crazy exercise for you.
Try to picture a day in yourown life three years ago.
In 2022, the big topics ofthe day were things like
product-led growth versussales-led growth, and the
debate around return-to-officeversus remote-first.
AI felt like an optional sidequest, and the employment
landscape felt like a buyer'smarket for job seekers.
Oh, how things have changed insuch a short period of time.
(00:24):
But another differencewas that this show had a
different host—and thatformer host is my guest today.
Michael Luchen has spent thepast three years shifting his
focus into product leadership,and as a Product Transformation
Architect, he's been in theweeds through a pivotal time
when the only constant hasbeen changed, both outside
and within product teams.
In today's episode, we'll bereflecting on the strategic
and tactical bets he's madeover the past several years,
(00:46):
the ones that worked, the onesthat didn't, and where the
wind is blowing for productmanagement as we move into
the second half of 2025.
Let's jump in.
Oh, by the way, wehold conversations
like this every week.
So if this sounds interestingto you, why not subscribe?
Okay, now let's jump in.
Welcome back to theProduct Manager podcast.
I'm here today withMichael Luchen, who some
(01:07):
of you might remember.
Michael, thank youfor joining us today.
Michael Luchen (01:10):
Thanks, Hannah.
Great to be here again.
Hannah Clark (01:13):
Yeah.
First of all, can you tellus a little bit about your
background and how you gotto where you are today?
Michael Luchen (01:18):
Yes, so hey everyone.
I'm Michael, former host ofthis podcast, but more lately,
I refer to myself as a producttransformation architect.
And my focus has beenhelping on growth stage
companies build product orgsthat ship like startups.
Scale like enterprises.
So personally, I've had 12plus years of experience
working on over 50 productsfrom 10 person startups to
(01:41):
global brands like Adidas.
And through this time I'velearned that companies that
win aren't just ideal rich,but they're systems driven.
And so from my experience, greatproduct systems turn vision
into repeatable execution.
And this insight comesfrom leading products
across every imaginablecontext in org structure.
Each one teaching menew patterns about
(02:02):
what actually works.
Most recently, I was thedirector of product at Float,
where I transformed a productorg from irregular releases to
continuous cadences of deliveryacross all the teams helping
achieve significant ARR growthand the G2 number one position.
For that, I spent nine yearsat Crema, fantastic leading
digital product agency, leadingtheir product management
practice for the agency and forclients from elite consulting
(02:24):
firms to early stage startups.
And then on a personal level,I'm a systems thinker at heart.
Whether I'm architectingproduct ops, framing a shot
with my Fuji, or building Legowith my kids, always exploring
how pieces fit together.
It creates something greaterthan the sum other parts.
Hannah Clark (02:39):
Very cool.
And we've been talking alot about systems thinking
on the show recently thisis slots are right into our
thematic little situation here.
So we were the foundinghost, actually, of the
product manager podcast.
So thanks for laying thegroundwork here for the show.
That was, I wanna say, 2022.
Not really a long timeago, but in product land
that's like decades now.
(02:59):
The discipline lookedcompletely different.
So what have you found to be thebiggest shifts from then to now?
Rewind and compare whatthe discipline looked
like then and what are youseeing out in the field?
Michael Luchen (03:11):
Yeah, it's a really good question because I
think in our industry we feellike this constant wave of
change that we have to ride.
There's no like ever one fixedprocess or structure or way
that we collaborate as productmanagers and with product
teams to get great work doneand out to our customers.
And so it's really hard toanswer this question because
honestly, I've been thinkingabout what's next right now as I
(03:32):
answer the shift that I've seen.
So what is that shift like?
When I first started hostingthis podcast that time,
there was two worlds ofthinking that we're competing.
There was either the featurefactory type, we've got
a really defined processfor better and for worse.
But then there was alsolike the pure agile scrum
almost warship to an extent.
Teams, pick your poison orif you're at the enterprise
(03:54):
scale, it was safe.
And now I'm seeing that reallyhaving like taken a backseat.
Like those processesare still there.
Waterfall's still there,scrum is still there.
Safe is still therefor better and worse.
But what I see that the teamsthat are succeeding, are doing
is they're really looking attheir own product culture,
their own ways of thinking, thepeople on the team, and they're
picking and choosing piecesfrom each of those processes
(04:16):
without naming it as process.
Really creating a systematicway of how they approach
building great product andhaving fun doing it in a way
that leads to that continuousdiscovery and delivery.
Hannah Clark (04:26):
Okay.
So I wanna pivot a littlebit and talk about something
that we don't usually talkabout on the show, but I
think is so compelling,which is a failure story.
You had mentioned before in aprevious conversation that you
had a transformation initiativeat Float, which failed the
first time around what happened.
What's the postmortem onthis and what have you
learned in the wake of that?
Michael Luchen (04:45):
Yeah, so I started at Float after my,
nine years in agency space,like having the privilege
of being able to work withso many different orgs.
And so I had seen it allin terms of the patterns
of, small orgs, large orgs,orgs that were getting
over a growth stage hump.
And so I came in the Float andI saw some of these patterns.
I had been talking to everyoneup and down and across the org.
Everybody was aligned onthese patterns of the pain
(05:08):
points around the process.
And what was slowing down ourability to ship great work.
So I came in there, I gottrusted by the CEO and the two,
basically two co-founders togive a presentation in person at
the first all company offsite.
A few months into the role I waslike, we're moving to squads.
This is gonna be great.
And the presentation was great.
(05:28):
Everyone loved it, includingthe two co-founders.
Everyone throughoutthat meetup was saying,
this really resonates.
This is gonna solveall our pain points.
And then over the next fewmonths, it dissipated and
we started to go back toour old ways of working.
And so what I realized inretrospect was even though I
came in and I was like, here'sthe problem, and everybody
agreed with that problem andeverybody agreed with the
(05:50):
way to fix that problem, thereality is that it wasn't the
right time to make such a bigmove to process improvement.
Part of this was just dueto how we had grown the
org we were hiring for.
And we had specialized rolesin engineering, for example.
And so if something happenedor somebody was building a
feature that needed a veryspecific skillset, there was
(06:12):
only one person that could dothat, and that would of course
throw a wrench in any sort ofkind of sustainable squads.
The other aspect I learned fromthis is that culture change.
It takes time.
It's not just onepresentation, even if
everybody's bought into it.
It is that series of ongoingconversations, very much
nuanced, things that you'reworking through on a one-to-one
(06:32):
level or in a team setting.
And yeah, I'llnever forget that.
And it's funny because ifchatting with the CEO later
about this, we laugh aboutit today, about coming in,
guns a blazing, we're gonnachange and then that happened.
Hannah Clark (06:47):
I guess this is like the systems thinking kinda
thing, is that you kinda haveto take into account all the
reasons why something mightnot work and and then also
evaluate things from the sameperspective of oh, what were
the other context pieces thatkinda inform how we might wanna
re-approach this in the future.
So I wanna talk aboutthe practical sign
of transformation.
You developed a frameworkfor mapping org-wide pain
(07:10):
points using Miro tool thatmost of us are familiar with.
So how did you identify,what was the process for
identifying the frictionpoints beyond just product and
what did the process actuallylook like from day to day?
Michael Luchen (07:20):
Yeah.
I think even before you getinto the tools, just having
curiosity and empathy.
So I remember when I startedat Float and these same
lessons apply to some ofthe clients that I worked
with in my time at Crema.
You hear a lot of pain andlike challenges of oh it takes.
And these are just broadexamples over my career,
but it like, it takes thislong for, designs to be
(07:41):
ready so I can build them.
Or maybe they're, not alignedwith what we wanna build
or, there's no clear scope,alignment or definition of done.
All the things that we allfeel in our practice, the pain
points every day, and the thingsthat we hear from our team.
And I think what's reallyeasy to do is to have a
kneejerk reaction where.
You take that and you weaponizethat to try to force a solve
(08:03):
for that one specific painpoint if you're the leader
of that person's team.
And so for me, like at Float,I was director of product
overseeing the product manager'sdata UX research, and for a
time design before it grewonto into its own department.
And so naturally, like myinstinct is to protect my team,
but I had to set that aside inorder to go about this exercise
and not only meet one-on-onewith people across my team.
(08:26):
A cross section of the org fromengineers to marketing to even
customer success and sales.
What's working well?
What are you not getting?
Like what are the painpoints that you're feeling
and how we shift greatproduct and talk about that
product to our customers.
And it's just a conversation.
You don't go into it judging.
You don't go into ittrying to point blame or
fingers at one another.
(08:47):
And if you set that up andyou just have that honest.
Curious conversation.
You get so much great insightthat you can then map to sticky
notes on a mirror board andstart to identify what those
themes are once you do that,and once I have that, then I go
and I map like alongside that.
It doesn't matter when beforeor after those conversations,
what is the process that thecompany has agreed upon, and
(09:11):
you can pretty easily see likewhat are those discrepancies?
Then from there I take thosediscrepancies and those themes
that have those pain pointsacross the org and basically
map it to a new visual process.
And from there, that's what Iuse as the foundation to seek
alignment with the folks Italked with, but also across
the entire org up and downthe entire org on these are
(09:33):
the things we want to try,these are the process change
experiments we wanna make.
Once you have that buy-inbecause you're actually building
it on top of the real life painpoints that everybody is feeling
across the org, like you rarelyget any pushback from that.
Hannah Clark (09:45):
That's awesome.
And I was just gonna pushon that point because
I think the buy-in isoften the hardest part.
Even if the proposed solution onthe surface is gonna create that
source of relief for those painpoints, change is difficult.
It's really difficult to changepeople's habits and workflows.
And for example,like you'd mentioned.
Before that Float had apretty specialized engineering
(10:05):
culture, and so moving towardsmore of a cross-functional
product squad wasn't quite aswell received, or there was a
little bit of tension there.
So how do you manage situationslike that and ease transitions
when you're trying to transformthings and make life easier?
Like how do you acquirethat buy-in with more.
When there's tension to balance?
Michael Luchen (10:25):
Yeah, it's a good question.
And it comes down to, no punintended, the actual intent
of Float as a product, whichis resource management.
And having those discussionsthat lead to that, because
it was really aboutclarity and respect.
Without having those clearlines of communication with
partners across the org orrespect in doing so, then what
(10:45):
happens is like that's where youcan have friction, but if you
really focus on collaboratingon, okay, let's say there's
this really specialized.
Individual that we wannahave dedicated to a squad,
for example, but they haveto support like this really
key piece of infrastructure.
It's, you can't answerthat black and white.
So usually the options arewe can hire, but hiring and
onboarding that the quality thatFloat does, it takes some time.
(11:08):
So then what's theplan B in the interim?
That's where capacity planningand resource management
comes into play and aligningon those trade-offs.
And so this gets to two angles.
One, it's the person andthe individual themselves.
Are they approachingthis in a healthy way?
If, are they beingallocated to a squad like
halftime or full-time orwhatever that looks like?
How are they serving kind ofthose specialized needs of
(11:28):
support or mentoring acrossthe org that they have?
And are we okaywith that trade off?
Usually the answer is we don'twanna like split that focus.
And so then it gets back intothe product roadmap, and this is
where I really see the value ofops and product coming together
because you can't answer likehow do we actually allocate
this person effectively withoutthe context of what are the.
(11:50):
That's, that we're makingor deferring based on our
staffing approach to settingup these squads for success.
Hannah Clark (11:56):
That's a really good point.
Okay.
Tell me how the role ofpractical rituals fits
into that scenario.
'cause you'd come up withsomething called One Team,
One Roadmap, and you'd setup some async design sprints
to facilitate some of this.
So how did that evolve andwhat did you find were like
some of the most helpfultakeaways from that time?
Michael Luchen (12:13):
Yeah.
One team, one roadmap wasreally the culmination
of all of my producttransformation work at Float.
From coming in with that failedsquad implementation that later
did transform into a successfullasting implementation.
Once you, we did make thatinvestment and the cultural
investment, the hiringinvestments, but one team,
one roadmap really came upabout as Float was scaling.
(12:33):
Now it's okay, there'sall these product squads.
There's also platform squads.
There's like marketing focusedwork going on over here.
Now product marketingis asking questions
like, what's coming up?
Sales is asking questions like,how can I tell the narrative
authentically of what'scoming down the pipe or not?
How can I authentically involveproduct managers as spokespeople
(12:55):
when we have like really keynew client opportunities?
And then of course, the twoco-founders are asking questions
as well, like, how do we makesure we're budgeting right and
investing in the right way?
So one team, one roadmapwas really about today.
Each squad has their roadmap.
Each platform teamhas a roadmap.
These are all like managedtime separately and linear.
Let's bring this together in areally systematic way that is as
(13:17):
lean as possible, but providesas much up-to-date context as
possible without taking as muchtime as possible from the people
that are involved in that.
And so there was really thesystems piece of it first,
which using some of the newerlinear roadmap features were
able to create some greatsave roadmap views of all the,
basically all the product andplatform, et cetera, streams
(13:39):
that were ongoing at a time.
This was really great becauseit meant that the product teams
actually doing this reallyonly just how to provide a
status update and linear.
A very lean one.
Every now and then, thosestatus updates will go out to a
channel that I set up in Slack.
So anyone across the org,regardless of how close they
were to any sort of this productwork, could subscribe to that
(13:59):
channel if they just wanted tobe aware of what was happening.
And usually that channelwould include like a Loom
demo or even a link to a testenvironment if they wanted
to play around with it.
Then I also paired that with.
A ongoing monthlyproduct huddle.
These were 60 minute sessionsthat were focused on demos.
Only product managers acrossthe product teams would share
(14:20):
and celebrate their team andwhat they've been working on.
And then platform leadsacross the platform.
Teams would be doing thesimilar work as well.
These were actually biweekly,I say monthly because that's
how often people wouldhave to attend these, but
I intentionally set themup as biweekly because
we had async team membersacross 15 plus time zones.
And so to be respectful oftime zones, we wanted to
(14:41):
alternate ultimately how wepresented this to make the best
respect of everyone's time.
And so this radical transparencyultimately that was being
shared through these focusproduct huddles through the
completely automated linearroadmap updates, and then the,
so every so often project statusupdates that would get piped
into Slack with live demos, itcreated this transparency that
(15:03):
built trust, that created aculture of shared understanding
so that we can make thedecisions on how we move forward
across, all teams effectively.
Hannah Clark (15:11):
Yeah, and I'm also really getting like this,
it's a huge amount of empathyfor people's different learning
styles and ability to integratethemselves into the strategy
at their own pace and be ableto there's the multiple levels
of being able to get buy-infrom different stakeholders.
So I really appreciatethis layered approach.
Michael Luchen (15:27):
That also like segues into what you mentioned
around design sprints as well.
So at Crema, like I had spentyears leading design sprints
with clients and new teamsand I think that today I don't
believe you have to necessarilyfollow the, buy the book
async design or design sprintprocess, but I do believe
it's kinda pick your own kindof tools that you cultivate
(15:47):
what your own design sprintlooks like for that alignment.
And so at Flow to align onthat strategic piece, I shifted
that into async design sprints.
And so it was essentially likea fig jam board at the time
of, how do you take a five daysprint of exercises and then
move it into an async format?
You gotta have more timebecause people on one hemisphere
(16:08):
are going to sleep aftercontributing to that board.
And then the other hemisphere iswaking up, reviewing, and then
sharing back what they thoughtasynchronously on that board.
So extended it to two weeks.
And what this leads to isactually you get like more
participation because peoplehave the time and the context of
their own environments to safelyshare what's on their mind and
add comments to that discussion.
(16:28):
And then you can always elevateit to a one-off sync discussion
if you want to talk aboutanything that is a hot button
topic that usually comes upin these strategy debates.
Hannah Clark (16:37):
Yeah, it sounds to me almost like a pen pal
versus classroom dynamic.
There's there a little bitmore, some degree of safety and
being able to put out thoughtswithout the sense of immediate
judgment or immediate, likeoverthinking what other people
are gonna think in the moment.
Michael Luchen (16:51):
Exactly, yeah.
And being able to shift backand forth between the two.
Again, ultimately outta respectof what's best for the team.
Hannah Clark (16:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
I'm gonna change gears alittle bit because we can't
get through this conversationwithout mentioning everyone's
favorite two letter word,which should be AI of course.
So when you would'vebeen hosting this show.
I don't think anyone wasreally talking about AI in any
certain terms, and now it'sall anyone wants to talk about.
(17:18):
At the time that you would'vegone been here, we would've
been talking about AI asreally Actually I even remember
I was coming onto the teamright around that time and
I remember the conversationsaround AI were very loose.
It didn't really seem thatthe technology was ready
yet to be useful, and noweveryone is in a rush to
adopt AI in every workflowand in and their products.
(17:41):
So at Float, what was theapproach to AI integration?
And obviouslythat's a huge thing.
You were navigatingthis, you've been really
close to that project inthe last little while.
How did you navigate that?
Michael Luchen (17:53):
It's really interesting 'cause I think in
the early days when ChatGPTfirst came out, I was in awe
and enamored by the product,much like everyone was.
And so I started experimentingwith it and I started.
Researching some of thecapabilities and the
opportunities that we had froma product perspective with it
just outta personal interest.
And then I started to bringit back into how do I apply
(18:13):
this to the product at Float?
So I started like mapping outsome ideas and ultimately that
just led into a side passionproject of mine where I remember
I put together this like bignotion doc white paper that
had some of my own kind ofbeliefs of it was the early
days at the time, but whereis this modern LLM tech going?
Where is it gonna be inthree months, six months,
(18:33):
one year, three years?
And how's that gonna impactSaaS, particularly B2B
SaaS that Float serves.
So then bringing in someindustry references, I was like
actually, how do you make betsthat we need to invest in from
a product perspective today?
And make sure that we're timingthose bets appropriately,
but also not, like throwingeverything away and just
focusing solely on AI as wasso the temptation at the time.
(18:57):
And then also a few sketchestoo, like mapping some of our
data points in the API to ifwe had this available to LLM.
What are some of the thingswe could do with this?
And so it was really justfrom a place of curiosity that
led to this doc that I thencreated and shared with the
rest of the leadership teamand got a lot of really great
excitement and buy-in from that.
(19:18):
We actually ended upconsulting with a generative AI
consultancy out of Melbourne.
A couple great guys moved 37,and they really guided us on.
Not just how to approach AI,but making sure that we approach
it in a way that aligns withwhat we wanna provide from a
user facing value perspective.
(19:39):
And so the earliest kind ofseparation they provided was the
difference between structureddata and unstructured data.
At the time, we were alsolooking at, improvements
to make to the reportingproduct that Float has.
But a lot of thoseimprovements you could
make just with structureddata and some improvements
to the database that westarted working on later.
The unstructured data isreally where generative
(19:59):
AI, that ambiguous stuffthat we use every day with
ChatGPT or Claude comesfrom, and that's where able
to separate the experiments.
The core thing that camefrom that was focusing
on the agent workflows.
They helped us create anagent playground that allowed
us to play with some of thedata to get some varying
results so that we could seeand figure out how might we
(20:20):
implement this in the product?
And so for me what thatmeant is as a product person
moving forward, I'm lookingat not just user flows.
But I'm also lookingat agent flows.
So I started designing thingswhere we would have yeah, the
user flow, the user does X,so they can do get y result.
But then like almost under,like quite actually literally
(20:40):
from a visual underneath thathere's what the agent is doing
in the background to helpsupport the user in that result.
This was different from a lotof the implementations that
you see in the industry whereit's a chat box, a glorified
chat box, and those are fine.
They're great quick ways tointeract with data as quickly
as possible, but it's also notthe idea that user experience,
(21:02):
I think of where AI has thecapability of going in terms
of product integration.
That gets better with useover time, but you don't
necessarily have to use orknow as a user that you're
actually interacting with AI.
Hannah Clark (21:14):
Okay.
I'm gonna change gearson you one more time.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe differences in how PMs need
to operate now, because we'relooking at transformation on
all levels, culturally as anindustry and in the actual role
of product managers as well,who are now moving from a very
execution focused role to onethat's very much more strategic.
So in your experience, leadingtransformation, how do you
(21:35):
advise product leaders to guidetheir PMs into adjusting their
approach and adopting someof these more kind of radical
shifts in focus and skillset.
Michael Luchen (21:44):
So it's an interesting one 'cause I'm
actually gonna leave witha hot take that I've held
true to throughout my careerand I continue to even more
a great product manager orproduct person, if you're
wearing that hat, is holdingboth execution and strategy
together at the same time.
And typically, I know that'sa hot take because the way
I've seen it is, and I thinkwhat your question alludes
to is there are people thatsay if you're just doing
(22:07):
execution, you're just aglorified project manager.
Or if you are just doingstrategy, you're a mini CEO,
I think both takes are toxicand I think what is ultimately
good is, and where the PM hasan increasingly unique ability
to guide an org forward inis balancing both how do we
execute this in a way thatbrings together the expertise
of everybody across the productteam from development to
(22:28):
design QA and more in a waythat strategically serves the
needs of the business and theopportunities of the market
and the customer and more.
And that's easier said thandone because during this, and
I think where some of thesearguments that are more black
and white thinking have hadmerit in the past is that
they'll say these two arejust at odds with one another.
Like you can't be strategic ifyou're thinking about how you're
(22:50):
gonna efficiently get this done.
I disagree with that because Ithink when you, as I've shared
through some of these otherkind of stories, like when you
lead with empathy and you leadwith curiosity, it gets you
to a place where you have allthe context in front of you.
If you're using a Miro boardor a fig jam board, you got
sticky notes with your team.
It's almost like a messyarchitectural desk, and you
can move all the pieces aroundto see like what's the best,
(23:10):
most effective way that we canstrategically execute this.
It's gonna guarantee us results.
But it's also makingan efficient use and a
respectful use of theteam's time, and everybody's
coming together for that.
What this means for those whoare more execution focused
today is to like actually leadwith curiosity and think about
from a strategic perspective,what are the things that you're
(23:32):
hearing from your engineeringcounterparts in terms of, tech
debt concerns or new technicalopportunities on the horizon, or
things that they're exploring?
What are you seeingfrom design in terms of.
New design stacks or ways ofapproaching how you do that,
and then of course, what areyou as a product manager seeing
in terms of what you're hearingfrom customers in the business.
You bring all that togetherand I think you can have
(23:53):
like just a really greatapproach to execution and
strategic, moving the strategyforward at the same time.
Hannah Clark (24:00):
I don't even think that's a very hot take.
I think that's a verygood take, firstly.
Okay, let's end it off onsomething a little lighter,
a little bit more personal.
'Cause you had mentioned tome that you've been doing
some AI building projectswith your son on the side,
which I think is very cool.
Tell me a little bit, 'causewe've discussed through our
newsletter and the like,which, if you're listening
and you're not subscribed,why aren't you subscribe?
(24:22):
We did discuss a littlebit about how parenting
can really inform yourapproach as a product
manager, as a product leader.
So how has your life orparenting informed your
approach to leadershipand transformation?
Michael Luchen (24:32):
Yeah, I try to let both sides of my
life influence one another.
I'd like to say my work-lifebalance is pretty good, but
the reality is what I do isalso my personal passion.
And so I try tobridge those gaps.
So recently my son, he's fiveand a half, and one day he
came home from school andhe's Hey dad, can we build
this Ninja video game and putit on the PlayStation vibe?
And I'm like, okay I couldeither say yeah, let's
(24:54):
think about it, buddy.
Or yeah, let's figure it out.
At the time I haven'treally done any game
development, but in my mindI was like, you know what?
I'm actually gonna take this asan opportunity to bridge some
of that experimentation thatI'm doing for work with him.
And I was like,let's figure it out.
We'll use this newtechnology called AI on dad's
computer and we'll do that.
So what was interestingis then I started just
(25:16):
bringing in like the productdevelopment approach that I
use without telling him that.
And so I was like, Hey, whydon't you start sketching
out your ideas of who thecharacter's gonna be and
like how the gameplay'sgonna be and all that.
Ideation and discovery, right?
And so he starts like massing,like literally this pile
of construction paper overa week or so with that.
And then we finally get timeto sit down and I say, why
(25:38):
don't you sit down here?
And we talk about what isthe approach to the game?
And I was basicallyrecording this using a
transcription tool on my Mac.
Took this interview, droppedit at ChatGPT, asked it to
create a game developmentdoc, and then asked it to
bring that into somethingthat an AI tool could handle.
And so from at the time, whatI had heard is that, it's like
you wanna tailor it for themindset of a junior developer.
(26:01):
And so that's what I used tocreate kinda this level one
concept of this ninja game.
This is requirements gathering.
And so then I take it and Idrop this into, I was using
Bolt at the time as and clean itup the prompt up a little bit.
It created it, and nowwe're play testing.
Now we're doing QA onproduction, and he's saying
the sound doesn't work.
The controls are a little iffy.
(26:22):
Okay, cool.
We're providing thatfeedback, and we're iterate.
Now we got the loop goingon, and it eventually
gets to the point wherehe's excited to share it
with family and friends.
And then of course, later.
Now we're iteratingwith other ideas.
How do we turn itinto a 3D movie?
Cool, let's pull upGoogle's VO model and
it just goes on and on.
So I was bringingthat product thinking.
(26:42):
Which, if you think aboutproduct thinking at its core,
it's really based on like thescientific hypothesis and kind
of the scientific methodologyand the way of approaching that.
And so yeah, I try tojust bridge those two
worlds in my day-to-day.
Hannah Clark (26:52):
I think that is a much more thorough
example of bridging.
I think most peoplewe've talked to are.
Yeah.
Sometimes they have to convincehim to eat their broccoli.
Yes.
In your case, your kid literallyhas a product development
resume before he's able to read.
That's very impressive.
Michael Luchen (27:11):
I guess so I re, I remember when I was his
age, it's it was like, I waslike, I would be so cool to
like work for a Nintendo orsomething, I was like reading
Nintendo Power back in theday to just date my age.
Now you don't need to do that.
Like he can just get onand start saying what he
wants and go from there.
It's pretty cool.
Hannah Clark (27:27):
Oh, cool.
Thank you.
That's an absolutely incredibleexample and also a humbling
example from parent to parent.
I'm gonna have to update mylist of rainy day activities.
Michael Luchen (27:37):
Yes, yes.
It's a good one.
Hannah Clark (27:40):
Thank you so much for making time to come back,
check in with us, and yeah,it's been so great to, to talk
about what you've been up to.
Where can peoplefollow you online?
Michael Luchen (27:48):
Yes, you can go to michaelluchen.com
and there's links to all thevarious platforms I'm on, so
yeah, I'd love to connect.
Don't hesitate to reach out.
Hannah Clark (27:59):
Thank you so much, Michael.
Michael Luchen (28:00):
Awesome.
Thanks Hannah.
Great to be back.
Hannah Clark (28:05):
Thanks for listening in.
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