ProductBrain

Insights on product and engineering from Brisbane, Australia.

An editorial illustration in muted violet: a factory worker calmly finishing one perfect mechanical component at his bench, while behind him, out of his sight, a conveyor belt overflows with identical parts spilling onto the floor.

The Agent Is Brilliant at the Task and Blind to the System

22 June 2026

An agent will build you twelve individually correct effects and never notice they've become an unmaintainable tangle. It optimises the task. Holding the system, and knowing when to stop building and start designing, is still your job.

Foundation

Kano and the Innovator's Dilemma Are the Same Thing

19 May 2026

Map Kano's satisfaction model onto the disruption band and you get something neither framework gives you alone. Together they give you an operating model for knowing what to build and when.

Jakob Was Half Right

28 May 2026

Jakob Nielsen argued that AI is introducing the third user-interface paradigm. He's right about the direction. He's wrong about the destination.

Engineering

The Fifth Door Is Still Work

5 June 2026

The agent writes code. Everything else is still yours. Architecture, DevOps, security, SEO, content, product thinking. Vibe coding gets you through the door, but the building has six floors.

Product

A person with a backpack standing in a bright doorway, leaving a corporate office filled with whiteboards, sticky notes, and screens behind them

You Signed Up to Build Something

8 June 2026

You owned the outcomes in spite of controlling none of the inputs, and you made it work. The skills that got you here are real. And some of them will work against you if you choose to accept the next challenge.