Laws of PM — Law of the Week

Law of the week: Kano Model

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Reviewing the roadmap? Audit the basics, performance, and delighters split. Most teams over-fund delighters.

TL;DR — Features fall into three types — basics, performance, and delighters — and each type pays back differently.

Law of the week: Metcalfe's Law

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Launching a network feature? Density beats breadth. Find your atomic network before you scale.

TL;DR — A network's value grows roughly with the square of its users — which is why latecomers to network-effect markets almost always lose.

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Law of the week: Five Whys

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Post-incident week? Five Whys works best when you write down what would falsify each 'why' before you answer it.

TL;DR — Most people stop asking 'why' at the first answer that sounds plausible — which is usually a symptom, not a cause.

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Law of the week: IKEA Effect

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Wrapping up a co-design workshop? Document what stakeholders contributed to, not what they specifically designed.

TL;DR — Stakeholders overvalue the parts of a product they helped design — especially the parts that user research later says to change.

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Law of the week: Amara's Law

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Building an AI strategy? You're either going to overspend in year two or underspend for the next ten.

TL;DR — We overestimate what technology will do in 2 years and underestimate what it will do in 10.

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Law of the week: Conway's Law

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Wondering why the product looks inconsistent? Look at the org chart. The fix isn't a design system.

TL;DR — A product's structure ends up mirroring the communication structure of the team that built it.

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Law of the week: Planning Fallacy

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Roadmap planning season. Ask 'how long did the last five things like this take?' before 'how long will this take?'

TL;DR — Teams consistently underestimate how long things will take — and they do it even when they know about this pattern.

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Law of the week: Loss Aversion

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Announcing a feature deprecation? Users will react ~2× more strongly than your most pessimistic estimate.

TL;DR — Losing something feels roughly twice as bad as gaining the same thing feels good — which changes the maths on every feature you remove, replace, or migrate.

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Law of the week: Abilene Paradox

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

About to leave a meeting where you all agreed to something nobody actually wants? Name it now.

TL;DR — Groups often agree on decisions that nobody in the group actually wants — because silence gets misread as support.

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Law of the week: HiPPO Effect

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Steering committee on Thursday? The decision is being made on Monday in the 1:1, not the meeting.

TL;DR — Without evidence on the table, the most senior person's preference becomes the decision. (HiPPO = Highest Paid Person's Opinion.)

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Law of the week: The Mom Test

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Doing user research this week? Re-read this first. Most interview decks are politeness machines.

TL;DR — Don't trust what people say about your idea. Trust what they tell you about what they actually did.

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Law of the week: Parkinson's Law

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Generous deadline this sprint? The team will use every day of it. Tighten before you start.

TL;DR — Work expands to fill the time available — so generous deadlines mostly buy you polish on the wrong things.

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Law of the week: Brooks's Law

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Behind on a launch? Adding people will make it later. The right answers are: cut scope, or extend.

TL;DR — Adding people to a late project makes it later, because coordination costs grow faster than the extra hands help.

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Law of the week: Chesterton's Fence

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

New on the team? Don't tear down the weird rule until you've found out who put it there.

TL;DR — A rule or process you don't understand is probably there for a reason — so find the reason before removing it.

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Law of the week: Hyrum's Law

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Mid-cycle redesign? The 'small UX tweak' is a Hyrum's Law landmine. Plan the comms.

TL;DR — Once a product has enough users, someone, somewhere, is depending on every little thing it does — including the things you never documented or intended.

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Law of the week: Goodhart's Law

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

OKR-setting week. The number you choose will not survive contact with the team that's measured on it.

TL;DR — The moment a measurement becomes a target, it stops being useful — because people start optimising the number instead of the thing it was supposed to represent.

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Law of the week: Sunk Cost Fallacy

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

End of quarter. Before you 'finish the Q3 project', ask whether you'd start it today.

TL;DR — The money, time, and energy you've already spent can't come back — so they shouldn't decide what you do next. Only the choice ahead of you matters.

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Law of the week: Metcalfe's Law

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Launching a network feature? Density beats breadth. Find your atomic network before you scale.

TL;DR — A network's value grows roughly with the square of its users — which is why latecomers to network-effect markets almost always lose.

Read the full entry →