Building a product and ux practice
I'm a product leader focused on building high-performing teams and enabling their best work. As the VP of Product and User Experience at MillerKnoll, I grew what was previously a launch-and-abandon-type project organization into a successful product-led structure, scaling a group of eleven vaguely-product-oriented folks to a team of 50+ product managers, analysts, designers, UX strategists, and researchers.
That work taught me that the hardest part of building great products isn't the craft. It's the conditions: how decisions get made, how trust gets built, how teams learn to speak the language of the people they're trying to influence. Those questions followed me out of MillerKnoll and into my current work as a fractional COO, where I help product-led organizations build the systems and culture that let good work actually land. I also work with individual leaders and teams on a coaching basis.
One practice I developed at MillerKnoll and still believe in is weekly alignment on product philosophy and strategy through practice-area stand-ups. Individuals have daily stand-ups with product teams to talk about tactical work, but the weekly practice-area stand-up is where you dive into frameworks, learnings, and thought leadership. I'm cataloging some of those topics here, in the hopes that they spark meaningful conversations in your organization too.
Stand-Up Topics Index:
Research Your Stakeholders Like Your Users - Apr 21, 2026
Use Context for More Influence - A Podcast - Mar 2, 2026
The New Hire Test for Success - Feb 17, 2026
Dimensions of Quality - Jan 27, 2026
Creating Space in the New Year - Jan 5, 2026
Storytelling via Roadmaps - Dec 10, 2025
A Gratitude Practice for Product Teams - Nov 25, 2025
Tooling (and AI, of course) - Sept 24, 2025
Time Estimation - Aug 12, 2025
Uncovering and Challenging Our Hidden Assumptions - July 1, 2025
Choice Always Exists - June 3, 2025
Book Club: Impact First Product Teams by Matt LeMay - May 7, 2025
Product Vision - Mar 4, 2025
Technical Debt - Feb 5, 2025
The Drama Triangle vs The Empowerment Dynamic - Nov 26, 2024
Signaling Decisiveness - Oct 1, 2024
Book Club: Transformed by Marty Cagan - Sept 10, 2024
Using Games at Work - Aug 20, 2024
Team Health - Speed and Trust - July 18, 2024
Projecting Expertise - June 25, 2024
Financial Literacy for Product Managers - May 8, 2024
Hosting a Successful Meeting - Apr 16, 2024
Supporting Introverts on Product Teams - Mar 19, 2024
Control versus Accomplishment - Feb 12, 2024
Product Team Roles - Jan 23, 2024
Supporting Users with Micro Interactions - Jan 9, 2024
Measuring Execution: Product Metrics, Part 2 - Dec 12, 2023
Measuring Execution: Product Metrics, Part 1 - Nov 21, 2023
Product Stability Risk - Oct 24, 2023
Inspiration via Your 5 Senses - Sept 12, 2023
Identifying Stakeholders - Aug 24, 2023
Types of Innovators - July 20, 2023
AI In Product - June 22, 2023
Personal Prioritization - May 17, 2023
Exploring Polarity and Strategic Tension - Apr 25, 2023
Office Personality - Mar 29, 2023
Contradictory Users - Mar 16, 2023
Job/Career Priorities - Feb 15, 2023
Cumulative Actions - Feb 2, 2023
Negotiation Tactics - Jan 24, 2023
New Year Maxim - Jan 9, 2023
Good Gift Giving is User Empathy - Dec 20, 2022
UI / UX Challenges - Dec 5, 2022
Time Travel to Better Results - Oct 19, 2022
Gaining Insights - Oct 9, 2022
Evangelizing UX - Aug 23, 2022
Inclusive Language - Aug 2, 2022
Sharing Knowledge - July 20, 2022
Measuring Burnout - July 6, 2022
Frameworks and Mental Models - June 29, 2022
Envy - June 16, 2022
Asynchronous Ways of Working - June 6, 2022
3w3 Framework - May 31, 2022
Envision the Future - May 23, 2022
How to Measure Team Health - May 20, 2022
Top 10 / Bottom 10 - May 16, 2022
Guiding Questions - May 9, 2022
Team Psychological Safety - May 6, 2022
Find Your Allies - May 3, 2022
Articles & Insights Index:
The Blank Virtual Lobby: Making the Implicit Explicit in Remote Product Teams - March 10, 2026
The Captain, Quartermaster, and Crew: Leadership Lessons from Pirate Ships for Product Teams - Nov 4, 2025
The Pirate Code: What 18th Century Crews Can Teach Modern Product Teams - May 20, 2025