The Product Experience

Mind the Product
  • 4.9 (7)
  • BUSINESS
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The Product Experience features conversations with the product people of the world, focusing on real insights of how to improve your product practice. Part of the Mind the Product network, hosts Lily Smith (ProductTank organiser and Product Consultant) & Randy Silver (Head of Product and product management trainer) “go deep” with the best speakers from ProductTank meetups all over the globe, Mind the Product conferences, and the wider product community.

  1. 4D AGO

    What high-confidence product managers do differently - Axel Sooriah (Atlassian)

    Product managers are saving hours with AI, yet feel more uncertain than ever about whether their products will succeed. What’s going on? In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver sit down with Axel Sooriah, product management evangelist at Atlassian, to unpack the findings from a large-scale survey into the state of product management today. Axel shares why so many teams are stuck on the hamster wheel of execution, how cross-functional collaboration still breaks down in practice, and why 84% of product managers doubt their products will succeed despite loving the craft. The conversation explores the real reasons behind PM anxiety, the role of leadership in creating confidence, and how reframing work around customer progress can re-energise teams. Chapters 00:00 – Money, motivation, and product work 01:12 – Axel Sooriah’s product background 02:16 – What a product management evangelist does 05:38 – Why Atlassian ran the state of product management survey 07:01 – AI productivity and the strategy time paradox 11:32 – The hamster wheel of execution 14:01 – Leadership, incentives, and product manager agency 16:16 – Using AI in customer discovery 18:17 – Cross-functional collaboration in practice 22:06 – Why 84% of product managers doubt success 26:16 – Discovery, evidence, and decision-making confidence 28:47 – Fear and curiosity in the age of AI 30:50 – Getting started with AI as a product manager 32:54 – Profit focus and product team motivation Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    39 min

  2. 2025-12-24

    Rerun: AI ethics advice from former White House technologist - Kasia Chmielinski (Co-Founder, The Data Nutrition Project)

    In this episode of the Product Experience Podcast, we speak with Kasia Chmielinski, co-founder of The Data Nutrition Project, who discusses their work on responsible AI, data quality, and the Data Nutrition Project. Kasia highlights the importance of balancing innovation with ethical considerations in product management, the challenges of working within large organizations like the UN, and the need for transparency in data usage.   Featured Links: Follow Kasia on LinkedIn | The Data Nutrition Project | 'What we learned at Pendomonium and #mtpcon 2024 Raleigh: Day 2' feature by Louron Pratt Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    32 min

  3. 2025-12-17

    How to build a product-driven engineering team - Matt Watson (Founder, Full Scale)

    What does it take to build truly product-driven engineering teams? In this episode, Matt Watson — founder and CEO of Full Scale and author of Product Driven — joins Lily and Randy to challenge the longstanding silos between product and engineering. Drawing on 25+ years of experience and four tech ventures, Matt makes the case for why developers need more than just code to care about: they need context, ownership, and clarity. From redefining “done” to the evolving role of AI in software teams, this conversation dives into how product leaders can foster a culture where engineers aren't just implementers, but co-creators of customer value. Chapters 0:00 – Why “no feedback” is a warning sign, not success 1:46 – Matt’s journey: from developer to founder 2:58 – Thinking outside the code: how the book Product Driven started 4:50 – Why many engineers don’t think about the customer 5:57 – The rise of product managers and the walling off of engineers 6:56 – Redefining the role of PMs in cross-functional teams 9:01 – Metrics, measurement, and the illusion of progress 10:57 – Ownership as the root of productivity 13:04 – Code monkeys, culture, and killing creativity 14:55 – Communicating context: five minutes that save weeks 17:04 – AI and the changing definition of developer productivity 20:32 – External value vs internal tech debt 22:48 – The Product Driven model: Vision, Focus, Clarity, Shared Ownership, Courage 27:08 – Why courage is the starting point for change Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    41 min

  4. 2025-12-10

    How to prototype with AI in hours - Prerna Singh (CPTO, Avaaz, Meetup, IBM)

    In this episode, Prerna Singh, CPTO at Avaaz, walks us through how AI is reshaping the way we prototype, learn and build digital products. Rather than replacing teams or skipping straight to production, she argues that AI shines when used as a “thought partner” to accelerate early‑stage experimentation. Through her own journey building a community platform on weekends, she demonstrates how tools like ChatGPT, Lovable (and later Claude / Replet) and Figma AI enabled her to move from blank page to clickable prototype in hours — while retaining the human insight, iteration and context that underpin good product work. The conversation reframes common assumptions about “fast‑AI = bypass human work,” and instead proposes a balanced adoption path: start in “sandbox mode,” learn and play — before graduating to “architect mode” where the real value to business begins. Chapters 00:00 – Introduction & AI’s impact on product cycles 01:43 – Meet Prerna Singh: her background in product and community building 03:50 – The community problem: logistics over connection 05:11 – Turning to AI to solve her own problem 06:50 – What AI can’t do: user insight and human judgment 08:08 – From waterfall to short-cycle prototyping 10:54 – Using ChatGPT as a Socratic thought partner 13:07 – Working solo vs team: where AI fits 17:17 – From prompt to prototype: using Lovable 19:06 – Iterating with Figma AI and other tools 23:00 – Real feedback from real users 25:02 – Creating a feedback knowledge base with AI 26:16 – AI vs design sprints: same principles, new tools Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    40 min

  5. 2025-12-04

    How to measure impact in platform product management - Teresa Huang (Head of Product, Bupa)

    In this episode of The Product Experience, host Randy Silver speaks with Teresa Huang — Head of Product for Enablement at global health‑insurer Bupa — about the often‑overlooked world of platform product management. They explore why building internal platforms is fundamentally different and often more challenging than building user‑facing products, how to measure the value of platform work, and practical strategies for gaining stakeholder alignment, driving platform adoption and demonstrating business impact. Chapters 0:00 – Why “efficiency” alone no longer cuts it — measuring platform impact in business terms 1:02 – Teresa’s background: from business analyst to head of product in health insurance 6:20 – What we mean by “platform product management” — internal tools vs marketplace vs public‑API platforms 7:44 – Why you need to “hop two steps”: address developer needs and end-customer value 10:24 – Types of platforms: internal APIs, marketplace ecosystems, public‑facing platforms (e.g. like Shopify) 10:55 – Reframing platform work: building business cases instead of chasing “efficiency” metrics 13:16 – Linking platform initiatives to core business goals and joint OKRs 15:47 – The importance of visualisation — using prototypes and role‑plays to communicate platform value 20:57 – Internal showcases: keeping stakeholders engaged with real‑world scenarios 23:28 – Success metrics for platforms: adoption, usage, reliability, ecosystem growth 26:00 – Retiring legacy services: deciding when low-use tools should be decommissioned 28:55 – From cost centre to enabler: shifting the narrative to show value creation Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    39 min

  6. 2025-11-26

    A better approach to the product team process - John Cutler (Head of Product, Dotwork)

    In this episode of The Product Experience, host Randy Silver sits down with product veteran John Cutler to explore why creating great products remains one of the hardest things organisations do. They dive into why so many companies adopt off‑the‑shelf models (“Spotify”, “SAFe”, etc) and still struggle, and how the secret often lies not in what you build but how you build it—specifically the game you design for how you work. Chapters 00:00 — The stigma around “how you work” 00:54 — Introducing John Cutler (again) 01:25 — What John’s building at Dotwork 02:46 — From fun to formal: doing discovery at scale 04:04 — Why process became a bad word 05:10 — The “cavalier PM” mindset 06:28 — Empowered teams vs. harsh realities 08:00 — What great pockets of practice have in common 09:03 — Managing up vs. doing the right thing 10:24 — Playing the game vs. designing the game 11:20 — What makes a great internal game 12:33 — Defining success: thriving, surviving, progressing 13:46 — Environmental design: why leaders hesitate 15:10 — Making intentional design less intimidating 16:42 — Tools, rituals, and the power of checkpoints 18:23 — The behaviour design playbook 20:41 — Removing blockers: access, repetition, reflection 22:12 — Replayability and t Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    45 min

  7. 2025-11-19

    How to design AI products that users trust - Nina Olding (Gemini, Meta, Weights & Biases)

    In this episode, Nina Olding, Staff Product Manager at Weights & Biases and formerly at Google DeepMind, working on trust and compliance for AI, joins Randy to explore the UX challenges of AI‑driven features. As AI becomes increasingly woven into digital products, the traditional UX cues and trust‑signals that users rely on are changing. Nina introduces her framework of the three “A’s” for AI UX: Awareness, Agency, and Assurance, and explains how product teams can build this into their AI‑enabled products without launching a massive transformation programme. Key Takeaways — As AI features proliferate, the UX challenge is less about the technology and more about how users perceive, understand and trust the interactions. — Trust is based on three foundational dimensions for AI‑enabled products: Awareness, Agency, Assurance. — Awareness: Make it clear when AI is involved (and when it isn’t). Invisible AI = risk of misunderstanding. Magical AI without context = disorientation. — Agency: Give users control, or at least the option to opt‑out, define boundaries, choose defaults vs advanced settings. — Assurance: Because AI can be non‑deterministic, you must design for confidence—indicators of reliability, transparency about limitations, ability to question or override outputs. Chapters 00:00 – Intro: Why AI products are failing on trust 00:47 – Nina Old’s journey from Google DeepMind to Weights & Biases 03:20 – The UX of AI: It's not just a chat window 04:08 – Introducing the Three A’s framework: Awareness, Agency, Assurance 08:30 – Designing for Awareness: Visibility and user signals 14:40 – Agency: Giving users control and escape hatches 21:30 – Assurance: Transparency, confidence indicators, and humility 28:05 – Three key questions to assess AI UX 30:50 – The product case for trust: Compliance, loyalty, and retention 33:00 – Final thoughts: Building the trust muscle Featured Links: Follow Nina on LinkedIn | Weights & Biases | Check out Nina's 'The hidden UX of AI' slides from Industry Conference Cleveland 2025 Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    34 min

  8. 2025-11-12

    How to spot (and solve) your product team’s biggest problems - Vidya Dinamani (Product Rebels)

    In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith speaks with Vidya Dinamani, product veteran, coach, and Co-founder of Product Rebels, about how to tell if your team is truly product-led or just paying lip service. With over a decade of experience coaching hundreds of teams, Vidya shares her insights into the critical elements of product maturity, the most overlooked barriers to effective product work, and how Product Rebels' diagnostic framework is helping companies move from chaos to clarity.  Chapters 00:00 – The customer conversation gap 01:28 – Meet Vidya Dinamani and Product Rebels 03:35 – Why they built a diagnostic, not an assessment 04:45 – Mindsets, competencies, and the missing piece: resources 06:28 – AI readiness: the new fourth pillar 07:40 – What it really means to be product-led 09:59 – How teams are using the diagnostic 13:10 – Breaking down the four pillars 16:01 – Why access to customers remains a key obstacle 17:38 – Patterns, or lack thereof, in product maturity 20:26 – AI readiness in context 23:59 – A case study: product maturity at scale 27:52 – Final thoughts on assessment vs naming What we learned from Vidya  Most product teams lack customer access: 70–80% of PMs Product Rebels encounter say they’ve never spoken to a customer.Being product-led requires more than intent: It demands mindset, core competencies, supportive resources—and now AI readiness.Diagnostic, not assessment: Their tool isn’t about performance reviews; it’s a heat map that reveals where to begin your transformation.AI is not a bolt-on: AI readiness is most effective when integrated into the broader product maturity conversation, not treated as a silo.Start with one thing: Rather than trying to become product-led across the board, identify a single focus area and build momentum from there.Internal PMs need customer framing too: Even teams building internal platforms need customer advocacy and insight.Featured Links: Follow Vidya on LinkedIn | Product Rebels  Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

    29 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.9
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

The Product Experience features conversations with the product people of the world, focusing on real insights of how to improve your product practice. Part of the Mind the Product network, hosts Lily Smith (ProductTank organiser and Product Consultant) & Randy Silver (Head of Product and product management trainer) “go deep” with the best speakers from ProductTank meetups all over the globe, Mind the Product conferences, and the wider product community.

Information

  • Creator
    Mind the Product
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2025
  • Episodes
    365
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 The Product Experience
  • Show Website
    The Product Experience

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