Maybe this stake is more prominent in start-up environments, where new ideas surface every day and the opportunity for growth is potentially wider. Philosophies like "Build fast, fail fast" are at the core of an agile mindset, helping us determine whether an idea is viable in the early stages or whether a pivot is necessary to achieve the desired numbers and experience.
HousingWire's Rising Stars awards recognize standout professionals ages 40 and under who are driving innovation, leadership and meaningful change across mortgage, real estate and homebuilding. Many past honorees continue to shape the industry long after earning the Rising Stars distinction, taking on expanded roles, leading major initiatives and helping modernize the housing ecosystem. As nominations for the 2026 Rising Stars awards continue to roll in nominations are open through Feb. 28 we're highlighting voices from last year's honoree list
If a doctor ran the front desk, took vitals, performed X-rays, handled referrals, dealt with insurance, and did the paperwork, they'd only have time to see a few patients each day. They wouldn't have time to advance their craft, and they certainly wouldn't do their best work. Instead, a doctor's office organizes work so the doctor can focus on patient care. Delegating tasks doesn't mean the doctor avoids other responsibilities. It means the organization depends on the doctor to apply their expertise where it matters most.
Kemi Badenoch's recent ridiculing of the prime minister over a supposed U-turn on digital ID plans (Keir Starmer denies change to digital ID plan is yet another U-turn, 14 January) is the latest example of a frustratingly narrow view of leadership. To the Conservative leader, adapting a policy is a sign of no sense of direction; to those of us who work in product management, it looks like necessary iteration of the process.
Fabrice Canel, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, wrote on X, "We're hiring a very Senior Product Manager!" He added that "spam is killing trust in AI & search." "Own the fight: reduce spam across Copilot, Bing & the web using AI/ML at internet scale. Protect millions of users, brands & the AI ecosystem. Join us & build a cleaner future," he added.
Everyone is constantly asking for more resources, Of course, where we can afford to and where it's appropriate, new resources arrive, but it is really important to me that we feel that we've deliberately understaffed every project at the company.
Here's what actually happened: A Microsoft employee working on Bing proposed a seemingly minor change to how the search engine displayed ad headlines. The idea required minimal effort-just a few days of engineering time-but it was buried among hundreds of other proposals. Program managers deemed it insignificant and let it languish. The breakthrough came when an engineer, recognizing the low development cost, decided to test the idea anyway.
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Companies are hiring armies of people with "product manager" on their business cards, but they're treating them like project management with better vocabulary. Frankly I see it a lot with enterprise clients. Teams are drowning in tactical decisions and they're optimizing for activity over outcomes. The result is not ideal: Products that ship on time but solve all the wrong problems. Roadmaps packed with features nobody asked for.
I've spent 15+ years building across multiple tech ventures and cultures - starting in Vietnam, sharpening my craft in Japan and Singapore, then expanding to the U.S., Australia and Europe. Each stop taught me how different ecosystems turn constraints into capability: how to ship products under pressure, build companies from zero, grow talent pipelines and lead teams through the hardest execution challenges.
Some product managers become bottlenecks because they want to control all decisions and information. For others, company culture creates bottlenecks. Regardless, whether it's excessive approvals, fear of failure, or unclear accountabilities, product managers often become the single decision maker for product development. It's a lot of pressure to have team members waiting on you for something and to unblock them in their progress.
At Amazon, I was on the Amazon Q Developer team, building their AI coding assistant. You'd think being at the center of Amazon's AI developer tools would be exciting, but it was actually deeply frustrating. It was apparent to anyone outside the Amazon bubble that we were losing the AI game badly. The leadership was constantly playing catch-up because there was very little true product vision. They kept saying they wanted to move like a startup, but then had the risk tolerance of IBM.
Every CEO knows the feeling of promised features taking months longer than expected, simple changes breaking unrelated systems, and top engineers fighting fires more than they build the future. Welcome to technical debt: the detritus of yesterday's innovation that increasingly blocks progress today. The crucial reality is that tech debt isn't an "IT issue"-it's a business strategy problem that directly impacts your bottom line, competitive positioning, and organizational resilience.
Evidence maps are logical tools for consolidating data and insights, offering clarity in decision-making amidst a sea of qualitative and quantitative data gathered from multiple tests.
Create claims 30,000 monthly active users, that it processes more 20,000 projects daily, and that its Frontier AI agent is "so reliable you can build entire apps without looking at the code once, under the hood."
Nora emphasizes the importance of curiosity in identifying gaps or assumptions in product management, advocating for a culture of openness and diverse perspectives. She believes that understanding the audience is crucial, as this aligns closely with product strategy and helps to create meaningful interactions.
