5 Ways to Master the Art and Science of Product Sense
From signal to success, techniques you can apply today to blend intuition with data to make winning product decisions
Picture this: A room full of product leaders huddled around market data like detectives at a crime scene, learning to spot the subtle clues that spell opportunity. Building on my previous post on Product Sense, at my Reforge workshop on Sharpening Product Sense, I revealed how top product minds transform market whispers into winning decisions.
The secret? It’s like developing a sixth sense for product success. Just as a master chef knows instinctively when a dish needs a pinch of salt, great product leaders cultivate an intuition that bridges data and action. One leader in our session shared how this approach helped them spot a game-changing feature their data alone missed.
I showed how to:
Read market signals like a pro
Transform gut feelings into confident choices
Turn decisions into measurable wins
Why? Because in today’s fast-moving market, the difference between good and great often comes down to your product sense.
In today’s post, get answers to the top five questions now. No need to wait. Want the rest? When you subscribe, I’ll share the remaining answers in my next newsletter.
1. How can we assess the level of product sense in PMs, designers, and developers?
After the session, attendees asked how to evaluate one’s product sense level. Let’s revisit the framework. At the foundation, product sense begins as a blend of ‘art’ and ‘science’.
With the rise of AI, the framework for achieving and maintaining product sense is evolving. The value of product sense hasn’t declined; there are additional resources.
Then factor in understanding how to navigate both internal organizational dynamics and external market forces while applying both creative and analytical approaches.
And, yes, here our friend AI appears again. Failing to incorporate AI considerations into product sense can lead to missed opportunities and eroded market position. However, it’s not about blindly adopting AI - it’s about thoughtfully and realistically integrating AI capabilities across all four dimensions. I’ve identified more areas where AI will play a role as usage rises.
Want to level up your product sense? This guide breaks down the essentials: Customer Insight, Market Analysis, Organizational Impact, and Technical Mastery. Rate yourself from 1-5 in each area to see where you stand - from rookie to master. Check back every few months to track your growth and spot areas to improve.
2. Is product sense an innate skill, or can the ‘art’ side be developed?
I believe in Carol Dweck’s growth vs fixed mindset philosophy. She shares that our mindset shapes our behaviors in any context. Our thoughts and beliefs determine how we perceive ourselves, our environment, and the world.
Someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and improvable through effort. In contrast, someone with a fixed mindset sees those traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time. (link)
Want to grow? See your skills and talents as muscles you can strengthen through practice. Think they’re set in stone? That’s like saying you can’t get stronger by working out.
Reframe your thinking. Instill a belief in yourself and a mindset geared towards getting better instead of believing you are already the best or good enough. Only practice can alter our default behavior. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but creates the capacity for change.
Frustrated that your ‘art’ skills aren’t developing fast enough? When you face a challenge or failure, tell yourself “I haven’t learned how to do this YET.”
Every time you hear a voice saying: “You are not______.”
Add YET
“I am not ______ YET
You might be wondering about talent vs skill. While talent sets your learning speed, most abilities are skills you can build. Back to product sense - some people naturally grasp what users want and how markets work. But even the ‘art’ parts of product sense are teachable. You can develop your product instincts through hands-on experience and practice:
Always learning:
Stay updated on industry trends, user behavior patterns, and emerging technologies.
Collaborate with different teams to gain diverse perspectives on product development.
Continuous discovery:
Regularly engage with users, conduct user research, and practice putting yourself in your customer’s scenario.
Test hypotheses, analyze results, and learn from both successes and failures.
Raise the bar:
Seek guidance from experienced product leaders and learn from their insights.
Regularly exercise your product judgment by making informed decisions and reflecting on outcomes.
While natural aptitude can provide a head start, consistent effort enhances product sense over time. All ‘art’ skills of product sense can be developed further.
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3. In an engineering-led organization aiming to shift toward a customer experience and product-led growth approach, what is the key advice you’d give to unite teams around a shared view of product sense?
You can replace “product sense” with “product vision”. When an organization implements a go-to-market and organizational change like the one described in the question, the strategy stack needs an update. The type of insight sought and gathered on customers changes as well.
To unite teams around any strategic change, I recommend:
Host town halls that explain the new direction, its impact, and its purpose. Your teams will see leadership backing the change, learn to speak the same language, and work better together.
Conduct training sessions exploring case studies of companies that successfully made this transition, highlighting the benefits in growth, user satisfaction, and business outcomes.
Lean into your triads. Have engineers involved in product discovery and direct customer interaction share their insights with other engineers. This builds empathy and understanding of user needs.
Align all teams' metrics with the new ways of working, such as product-led growth metrics like Time to Value (how quickly users reach their first "aha moment") and Product-Led Conversion (conversion of trials to paid).
Empower teams to experiment by identifying and testing hypotheses about user needs and product improvements, using qualitative and quantitative insights to validate decisions.
Implementing these strategies can bridge the gap between engineering and product mindsets, creating a unified approach that values both ‘art’ and ‘science’.
4. What’s the best approach to balancing business goals with user needs in product sense?
Balancing business goals (internal facets) with user needs (external facets) of product sense is comparable to dance partners learning to move as one. When these two sides fall out of sync, they step on each other’s toes. One might try to lead too forcefully, throwing off the flow. But with time and practice, you can blend them into a performance worthy of center stage.
If dancing isn’t your thing, you can use a music analogy too. Like a skilled conductor, a product manager must balance the symphony, ensuring no section drowns out the other. The skill is in finding the ideal rhythm that satisfies both the musicians and the audience.
Here are my recommended steps:
Identify areas where solving user problems directly contributes to business success by focusing on creating user-centric AND commercially viable capabilities or products.
Ensure resources are allocated to features and improvements that offer high value to users while advancing business objectives.
Satisfy both “Customer Intuition” and “Organizational Insight” (see diagrams with Question 1) by including short-term wins and long-term strategic objectives that address user needs and business goals.
Regularly collect and act on market feedback to ensure the product aligns with evolving user needs, as being out of touch negatively impacts the business’s financial targets.
Bring together different departments to uncover diverse perspectives and ensure a collaborative approach to product development.
Track metrics reflecting user satisfaction (e.g., NPS, user retention) and business performance (e.g., revenue, market share) to measure success comprehensively.
Implement these strategies to satisfy user needs while driving business growth. Leveraging product sense enables informed decisions that benefit both customers and the company.
5. How can we effectively use AI or tools like ChatGPT to improve product sense?
I’ll start with something I’ve shared before. Humans are fickle. We make promises we won’t keep. Our words often mask our true thoughts and beliefs. We lash out and hurt others when we feel threatened, then turn around and help a friend - even when we know it’s unwise. AI sees our words at face value, missing the complex web of emotions and motives that drive us.
Warning label done… I’ve indicated in the slides in response to Question 1 where I see AI/LLMs improving product sense. Every, a media and software company, calls this approach “empathy engineering.”
It’s a framework for using LLMs to understand your customers better than they know themselves, create messaging that converts prospects into customers, and build better products and services. (link)
You’re using AI tools to role-play how the customer will think and react. Through empathy engineering, you’re inviting a vast mind to a brainstorming session and uncovering potential gaps, assumptions, or opportunities. Will facets be wrong? Yes. Will facets be right? Yes. Which is why it’s also time to use a common tool in any product manager’s kit, e.g. experimentation. The same Every article notes, “you won’t know what the AI can do until you ask it to try.”
Keeping the prior points in mind, areas where AI / LLMs can help build product sense include:
Analyzing customer insight from surveys, interviews, reviews, sales, or customer service conversations. Here I lean into Google’s Gemini and ChatGPT.
Identifying competitors and conducting competitor research. My favorite is Perplexity. Early results indicate Perplexity still outperforms ChatGPT search.
Drafting positioning and messaging to test with customers and determine the best fit. I’ve been exploring Ella from Atomic Elevator to inform my customer marketing efforts and create initial ideal customer profiles.
If this question was asked to inform whether human input is still needed to develop or maintain product sense, yes - our customers and internal colleagues fill a critical role.
Nothing beats talking to real users: While AI can crunch numbers and spot patterns, it can't replace watching someone use your product or hearing their frustration when something doesn't work. Those human moments reveal the most valuable insights.
AI needs a reality check: Like any other tool, AI can steer you wrong if you don't validate its suggestions against real-world experience and human judgment. You need to watch for blind spots and biases in the model training.
Garbage In = Garbage Out: Your AI tools depend on your data and guidance. If you feed them poor quality information or unclear instructions, you will get questionable insights.
Product Sense is Your Strategic Edge
Great product leaders blend analysis, customer insights, and targeted experimentation to spot opportunities and make decisions that drive real impact. They use product sense to balance data-driven ‘science’ with the ‘art’ of understanding internal dynamics and knowing when to use tools like AI for added perspective.
To level up, start by evaluating your skills across Customer Insight, Market Analysis, Organizational Impact, and Technical Mastery. Track your growth and refine your approach with each iteration.
Curious for more? In the next post, I'll answer five more pressing questions on product sense. Stay tuned for insights that can shape your approach to product leadership. Lancaster and I are already hard at work.
