I’m seeing a lot of talk in PM circles about the irreversible end-of-life of the PO – and even more radical, the consolidation of PdM and PgM roles – separate and alongside the PM.

There’s talk that the modern Product shop doesn’t need these two (edit: three) as an execution-discovery team, that AirBnb’s recent irresponsibly misinterpreted sleight against the Product Manager (PM/PdM) title portends a peak in Product roles, and that AI will inevitably make Product “more efficient” (aka “we’ll need fewer of you slobs”).

Product Owner (PO) is unfortunately chained to the yoke of Agile, which incredibly hasn’t changed in its maniacal focus on The Team (and still isn’t ready to embrace The Rest Of The Org, to its sorry detriment) – and is proof of the inevitability of Hypocritcal Irony in that Agile preaches relentless Inspect and Adapt but hasn’t Adapted its roles, rituals or manifesto in 23 years since those frustrated engineers fantasised about a world in which we all just got out of their way.

I’m seeing talk that the right way to make PMs more effective is no longer relying on a paired PO but leaning more heavily into EPMs (aka Program Managers aka PgM), ProdOps (Product Ops) and Continuous Discovery (aka “channel your customers and market” or “weaponise your critical advantage”).

I’m a little sad at the death (or at least dearth) of PO in the industry – that’s where I got my start ten years ago, and what catalysed my bias to experimentation, steel threading and “Scream Testing” – but it’s also a welcome sign that the rest of tech is ready to Inspect and Adapt. If something isn’t working, iteration/year after iteration/year, why shouldn’t we try something new that the evidence before us implies, and observe how that perturbs our intended outcomes?

So where can we look for inspiration? I’m still inspired by the radical refocus that is Modern Agile. What modes of thinking about value delivery and team effectiveness are inspiring you these days?