Product AF: Thinking in Product, Writing to Figure it Out

write about changing constraints.

Sometimes that’s product management, sometimes it’s AI, sometimes it’s leadership. Usually it’s all three.

Technology changes surprisingly fast. The principles behind good decisions change much more slowly and I’m interested in the space where those two collide.

I’m a product manager in my day job and I think about product management a lot. Probably too much.

Because at its core, product management is the practice of making better decisions under uncertainty. Frameworks, practices, processes, and habits aren’t the goal. They’re ways of improving judgment.

Good product isn’t about having the right answers. It’s about learning to see problems more clearly, make better bets, and keep improving your judgment.

ProductAF for two reasons:

1. I do product. It’s my craft, my career, my way of thinking.

2. Product as f***. Because product is messy, complicated, and takes an obsessive type of brain. If you know, you know.

What You’ll Find Here

I🛠 Honest Thinking • I write as much for myself as for subscribers. I avoid platitudes because they don’t help me think more clearly. Honest reflection does. Most posts start with something that doesn’t quite sit right, and I write until I understand why.

🧭 Enduring Principles • Technology changes quickly. The principles behind good decisions don’t. I’m interested in the ideas that outlast new tools, new methodologies, and new hype cycles, and in understanding why they continue to matter.

🎯 Useful Mental Models • If an idea isn’t useful beyond myself, I probably won’t publish it. I like borrowing models from economics, psychology, operations, and systems thinking because they often explain product work better than product frameworks do.

That’s how I find my way to the useful stuff. And this blog? One of my favorite practices. Where I can write to figure it out.

For more about me: arifranklin.me